No Short Sale After Buying New Home

Some agents never met a listing they didn’t like. Even though there might not be a chance in hell or high water that a listing will ever sell, there are real estate agents in Sacramento who will list those kinds of homes. That’s because agents can get residual value from those types of  listings. Not to mention, some agents are ignorant. Some are overly optimistic. There are all kinds of reasons why an agent would take a listing that will never sell, but the most hopeless kind of listing is that which is a short sale when the seller has just bought a new home. It’s a waste of everyone’s time.

Listing a home as a short sale when the seller has bought a new home is pointless. I will never, as a successful Sacramento short sale agent, knowingly take a listing like that. Been there, done that. Because I’ve learned the hard way over the past 7 years of selling short sales that it’s idiotic to do it. There are ways you can do a short sale and then buy another home but you cannot, read my lips, buy a home and then do a short sale. Not in your own name. You can buy a home in somebody else’s name and then short sale your former home, but you can’t buy a home in your name and then short sale.

If you don’t believe me, call your bank and ask. Be upfront. Say, hey, I just bought a new home. Will you do a short sale for me? Don’t get mad at me if they think it’s a prank call and hang up. I don’t write the short sale rules. Banks have a word for it. It’s called Buy and Bail. Goodbye short sale, hello foreclosure.

There are too many short sale sellers who are genuinely hurting and struggling with underwater homes. Banks know if a seller has bought another home that the seller can afford to own two homes. They don’t grant short sales for people who can afford to own both homes. A seller either deliberately goes to foreclosure, works out a deed-in-lieu arrangement (which is pretty much just as bad) or hires a lawyer to sue the short sale bank for some kind of fraudulent past mistake. But you don’t short sale. Sorry. There is no short after buying new home.