A question I seem to get quite a bit these days from my clients is ” What is the difference between short sales and REO’s?” I then , usually, go into a whole explanation of the pro’s and con’s of each, and end up telling them that REO’s are superior in every way. I have a couple of dealings over the past couple of months that really bring this point home.

For over a year now, I have had the pleasure of dealing with a wonderful family. They in North Hollywood, and have been searching for their perfect house in this area for quite awhile now. The first few times we looked around, we didn’t find anything that would have benefited their situation. The family had decided to take about a year, waiting for prices to drop, before they wanted to search again.

Finally, a few months ago I took them out again, and we found a cabin that was exactly what they were looking. The scenery of Oak Trees and the spic and span cabin was definitely a plus. The cabin was priced at $149,000, but still a steal of a deal. The only problem I had anticipated we would have, was that the cabin was listed as a short sale. Even after explaining to the family the complications and time that can come along with a short sale, they loved the cabin so much they didn’t want to give it up.

A month into the process we still hadn’t heard back from the bank. At this point I was fairly certain the listing agent was full of it and hadn’t really done what he needed to do to get a short sale done. I told my clients that all we could really do was wait and see what the bank would do. After a month and a half, the listing agent called me to say that the bank had just taken the listing away from him and never gave us an answer.

I hope I can reach the point where I never have to deal with a short sale again. But I will keep you postedon all of this…

Submitted by: Mike Kohn has much experience shopping a home for sale plus homes for sale in general. Check out more of his articles on the web.

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