CA Short Sale

For homeowners facing the prospect of a CA short sale we work in collaboration with our real estate attorney.  This collaboration gets our clients the expert short sale negotiation of an experienced attorney and the traditional services of a real estate broker including your home listed on the MLS, photography, yard sign (if you prefer), key box, and listings on third party sites such as Zillow, Yahoo Real Estate, Trulia, etc.  

Home sellers should consider a short sale when the value of their home is LESS than the amount of their outstanding loans. For example, if your home is worth $250,000 but you have a loan of $260,000 then a short sale is a consideration. Obviously, if you do not have to sell your home, you could wait out the market and hope for a turnaround in real estate values but depending on how far upside down you are, this could take years to even come to a break even point.  Request a free property home value report from us if you are not sure of how much your home is worth.

However, if you do have to sell your home you basically have three options.

1. First, you can bring cash to the table. In the example above you would sell your home for $250,000 and pay another $10,000 to the lender out of your pocket to pay off the loan on your property, plus an estimated additional $20,000 in commissions and closing costs for a total of $30,000 out of pocket to sell your home as a “traditional” sale.

2. Second, you could let the home go into foreclosure. The lender will go through the foreclosure process, force you out of your home and then auction it off to the highest bidder at a foreclosure or Trustee’s auction. This option is not always without recourse and before deciding on this option you need to consult with us about credit damage and remaining liability.

3. The third option is to pursue a short sale. With a short sale you can better control the ultimate disposition of the home (instead of a foreclosure where you are at the banks whim) and if you are residing in the property it is very likey that you will get some money for relocation costs as well!  Your credit is not as severely damaged and if a short sale is done and negotiated properly there is no remaining liability to the lender like there could be with a foreclosure. In this case we will tell your lender that we have a buyer for $250,000 and it’s very unlikely there will be a buyer at a higher price. If they will accept $250,000 for their $260,000 loan then you can proceed with a short sale.

This is a simplified explanation of short sales and the process. Every lender is different, every client is different, and every home is different; so, it is important to hire a team of attonreys and Realtors that have a vast amount of experience. In this section of the website we have identified a few topics to help you understand short sales. They are identified in the Short Sale Information menu on the left of the page. If you should have any questions, please feel free to contact us using the contact form or by calling.

The Keys to Our CA Short Sale Success:

  • Our team of attorneys and legal staff are well versed in all of the major banks’ short sale software and internal processes.
  • We know the correct steps to take to reach the final approval; nothing slips through the cracks and we know when and how to escalate a file to get the attention it needs.
  • Due to the volume of short sales we have handled over the years we have developed close contacts at many of the banks and servicing institutions who can help get a short sale expedited and who are used to and respect working with us.
  • We have negotiated and closed over 500 short sales, currently we have over 20 short sales in process. These include all property types including land, condos, homes, multi-family and commercial properties, with values from $100,000 to over $1,000,000. Our clients range from having experienced dire financial hardships to relocation to not having any financial hardship and having significant assets and income.

We have closed nearly every CA short sale we have negotiated. For 2012 our CA short sale approval rate was 94%, for 2013 our CA short sale approval rate was 98% and so far for 2014 we are at 98%. We work hard, are tenacious and hate to hear the word “no” and will do everything possible to get you the result you are looking for.

Short Sale Advantages-Relocation and Incentive Payments

While lenders have been unfortunately slow to act in granting desperate homeowners principal reductions or loan modifications that are actually affordable they are warming up to short sales as a solution to foreclosed properties in their shadow inventory.

Short sales through HAFA (Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program) enjoy an incentive payment to the homeowner of $3,000! In addition we have been able to secure for several of our clients incentive payments from their lender at the successful close of escrow in the tens of thousands of dollars (as high as $35,000 from Chase)! Short sales will be a part of our real estate terminology for many years to come in the future and it seems that lenders are finally waking up to the fact that a short sold home is better for them financially than a foreclosed home.

Having a short sale on your credit report is preferable to having a foreclosure on your credit report. In certain cases you may be able to secure an FHA minimum down payment loan immediately after a short sale.
If you sell your home through a short sale you are resolving yourself of the liability (with an appropriate negotiation and written approval), if however you choose to walk away and your home forecloses depending on the nature of your loan(s) and the route the lender took to foreclose you may be exposing yourself to years of collection calls, creditors, and possible lawsuits, legal money judgments, wage garnishments, bank levies and liens.  Please talk to us before deciding on which route to take with your upside down home.


We are experienced CA short sale Attorneys and CA short sale Realtors. We are a unique and powerful combination and can help you buy CA Real Estate homes or sell CA Real Estate homes with proven results, legal advice and the strategy needed to give you the results you want. Contact us today by clicking HERE or by calling 916-378-5760. We look forward to helping you with all of your CA short sale needs.

The results shown are not indicative of a result that you may receive as all cases and clients financial situations are different. We do not guarantee any results. Please be careful of any company that does, guarantees in this industry or in the legal field in general are impossible.