If you are trying to sell your home at short sale, the extended, expanded home buyer tax credit could be your best friend. Short sales are ideally a great way to help you prevent foreclosure.  They offer you the chance to have a little more say in the selling of your home, offer you more chances to plan your future, and offer you better closure to the situation.  The banks have been quick to say, “It’s not about you!  It’s about us.  We’ll have to think it over.  We’re short staffed.  We need those documents again.” The result is that short sales can take a long time – 60 days, 90 days, 6 months, keep counting!

The former first-time home buyer credit is now simply the “home buyer credit.”  It is up to $8,000 for first-time buyers and up to $6,500 for certain repeat buyers.  In either case, the deadline is April 30, 2010 for signing a contact and June 30, 2010 to close. The extra seven months give new life to short sales.  As long as a buyer has a contract in place by April 30, even if the closing does not occur till 11:59 pm, on June 30, the short sale buyer can claim the credit.

There is no guarantee as to how long a short sale will take to close, but if your buyer starts the process, you should have no problem.  The probability of success will decrease the closer time gets to the April 30^th deadline.

As it happens, there are may soon be incentives that will make short sales faster.  First, the government is now trying to promote short sales through the Making Home Affordable program.  That news is several months old, but the Treasury has been promising to release new incentives for lenders and sellers.  That should happen soon.

Second, lenders, starting with Bank of America, are beginning to implement a revamped short sale portal designed to centralize and streamline short sale processing.  Many of the 17 lenders that use the Equator (formerly REOTrans.com) program are expected to get on board.

If banks have any sense, they will embrace short sales and try to resolve as many as possible in the wake of continuing foreclosures.  That is not a done deal, however, as lenders and servicers are overwhelmed. Trying to selling your home at short sale could still be a prolonged process that results in refusals by the bank to accept your deal.  As the weeks and months drag on, you can find yourself under mounting mortgage pressure.

The Home Owner Credit offers you a chance to get a buyer; the extended time increases the likelihood the paperwork will go through, but there is still no certainty.

Can't Wait It Out?

Express Homebuyers offers an alternative.  We will buy your home and guarantee completion of the process within a couple weeks.  We tell you up front what we will pay; if you agree, you are on the way to a quick resolution.  We even offer you a $2,500 upfront advance you can plan your fresh start.  Call us at 1-(877) 804-5252 or check out our Express Homebuyers website for more details.