Roberto Ribas's Q&A

actually, if distressed sales are a significant percentage of sales in an area, the appraiser is required to use them.Are you sure you aren't dramatically overpaying for the home? Almost 100% of the time when I see this happen, a home with simply new paint, carpet etc. is being sold for dramatically more than the market would suggest, and simply put, a naive buyer is about to make a terrible mistake.

No I am not confused, at all. You are typical of a type of agent, that runs around answering things they don't know anything about.the owner has to sell the home. period. Show me a single short sale that sells with out the owner agreeing to sell it. You can't because that is impossible. [and yes I said owner. that is what the person is, that is how they are labeled on the sales contract, that is what the bank will refer to them as, the homeowner, that is what the law calls them]If you buy a home with a mortgage, you own the home, you have the bundle of rights associated with ownership. If you have a mortgage, or a deed of trust you give certain rights away, rights I might add, that only the owner can give away.The owner sells the home, if it is a short sale, the bank approves of the shortage in an addendum. If the owner doesn't sign the sales contract, the home isn't selling...

more silliness. Just because Song San doesn't want to put blind faith in his/her agent, hardly qualifies as a reason to doubt the agent.

Johny, you seem confused. Saying the owner is not in a position to approve anything is about as wrong as you could be. Until the foreclosure has happened, the owner of record still has 100% of his/her ownership rights. Unless the owner signs a sale contract, everything else is meaningless. Now, after the owner has signed a sales contract, the bank will have to approve the sale, since the bank is not getting all of their money back, they will have to approve the transaction as well.But make no mistake, the owner owns the home, and has all the power in the world to sell it, or not sell it.

you will need to find a good real estate attorney in LA fast. Obviously, your loan company should have found this out before the 11th hour, before you signed off on the loan contingency. (in AZ the loan contingency is active all the way to closing, so this would not be the same here, a loan denial letter would still get you out of the contract with your earnest money, unless the buyer specifically waived the loan contingency)

this is one of the big mysteries of the banking world. Do they delay foreclosures repeatedly as some kind of misguided business plan, or are the banks simply this incompetent? taxes continue, stuff gets stolen from vacant homes, and yet banks delay and delay... You should have stayed in the home and saved rent (said more for other readers out there) I know of people who haven't paid the mortgage in over a year, and yet the notice of default hasn't even been filed yet...

I've got to go with Viv on this one... Except for some very special circumstances, such as large investment income or retirement income or something, unemployed and buying for a credit is about one of the more ridiculous notions I've heard. Also, asking a parent to cosign a loan if you have no ability or plan to repay it is a very bad thing to do to a parent. So, Vivianne is hardly out of line to point out other tangential problems, instead of focusing like a laser on the question at hand. Besides, Mack the knife,  discussions often go off on related issues, who the heck put you in charge of directing this one?

timely answer, only almost a year later!

state laws are going to vary on this. In AZ, you can cancel a contract on a short sale at any point before the bank has agreed to it, with no penalty at all.

craig: if you could READ,you would know the question is about BUYING a short sale, not doing one on a home you own...Then again, if you could read, you wouldn't be violating zillow's no self promotion policy...