Zillow Advice: Buying Process - good-faith deposit check

Hi,Wow....lots of confusion ...

Sun, 03 May 2009 11:39:00 GMT

Hi,

Wow....lots of confusion here. It appears you are have a "short sale" offer Ratified between you and a seller with a "third party approval" contingency.

Your questions were:

Shouldn't they have answered in 72 hours- NOPE!
(when you attempt to buy a short sale the sale is contingent until the bank responds. It's could take 2,3 4 even 5 months for that to happen and nothing is sacred. The bank may respond with terms that are less than what your Ratified Offer was for) It stinks...it's not right...it's happening to a lot of buyers and short sale sellers.

Can I ask for my counter check for $1000?
By this do you mean can you get your $1000 back? YES
Or do you mean can I ask for damages? NO

What if you found another house while you are involved in a short sale?
Many people ask this question. Be careful, let you Realtor guide you on this situation. It will really depend on the situation. It's sounds like in your case the bank turned down the sellers short sale request. Since the offer was contingent upon the Third Party Approval, you should be free to seek another home to buy. There is a process to get the $1000 escrow back. However just check with your Realtor they will guide you through that process. Your deposit is safely held in escrow.

Good Luck with finding your new home!

The response time on short ...

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:28:00 GMT

The response time on short sales is anywhere from 30 - 45 days minimum and could easily be as long as 90 days. Your agent should have informed you of the time to get a response back...realize this...the price that has been set was set by an agent not the lender who will ultimately decide whether to accept such an offer.

I have to correct Reed on ...

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:21:00 GMT

I have to correct Reed on this. In a short sale you can can not submit multiple offers on a property. A short sale is a contingency. And your offer has to be retified (signed and agreed on all terms) before submitting it to the bank. A seller can not commit to more then one purchaser at a time. This is misunderstood by many agents. sad but true!
You can put a time frame in your contract by which your offer expires. I have purchased a short sale this way and did it in 1 1/2 months.

You can technically put a ...

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:01:00 GMT

You can technically put a clause in your offer with an "expiration date." But this would not be in your best interest, since the banks are taking a long time to give you their answers.

Most banks are getting better about their answers. You may need to have your agent followup more with them. I have seen some banks work better via email correspondence.

Absolutely. You can ...

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 23:39:00 GMT

Absolutely. You can have as many offers in as you want. Your agent should fill you in on these details and explain to you how you are protected with your offers.

thanx Reed. So they can just ...

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 23:09:00 GMT

thanx Reed.
So they can just deny the offer, after a whole month of waiting. But what if we found another house while waiting, could we put another offer?

Wait a minute. Did they take ...

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 22:47:00 GMT

Wait a minute. Did they take your check or do you just want some sort of compensation for waiting. You're agent shouldn't release that check until your offer is accepted. As far as time limit to give an answer they can take as long as they want too, sometimes without a response. This is especially true with short sales.