St George Utah Short Sales or Listings

The nature of St George Short Sales have changed in both time and in how they are processed. They are less risky than they were before. Typically there is no earnest money required and either buyer or seller can "walk" anytime without penalty, prior to the third party approval(s) of the bank(s). Read More

Being a lot faster, short sales now take between 1 to 4 months typically. It is not unheard of that one takes much longer, so be careful. But most are 1 to 4 months now. Depending on if there is a short sale intermediary, like I have, when conducting my short sales as the listing agent, the time can be more like 1 1/2 to 3 months. 

Update: Short Sales can possibly affect credit just as bad as a foreclosure. Also, it is not always necessary to stop payments or recommended, in order to initiate a short sale- consult with my short sale specialist; call (435) 674-3600.

Short Sale Status

If you are a buyer searching for short sales, please be aware that on the back end of the MLS there is a "Short Sale Status:" section on every listing. "No" means it is not a short sale; this is most of the listings. "Active" means that it IS a Short Sale and intention wise, without a contract yet (not always the case). Another status that exists is "Offer Under Review", which means it does have a contract on it; but sometimes it is not taken down as Pending and could still be marketed as Active. To know for sure, just call you agent and ask.  Otherwise, you could be wasting your time, as sometimes it is only to the advantage of the seller to be reeling in a backup offer on a listing that, might you had known before going to look at it, would not have.

So, sometimes they already have at least one offer that has been submitted to the bank and they are mostly satisfied they have what they need.  They might even have a backup offer. But most of these will have changed their status to read "Offer Under Review", at least on the back end of the MLS.  You can put in a request without wasting your time to go look at it, to "call me back" if the first contract "falls out". So be sure to not assume that just because it says Active, you are not just wasting your time putting it as one you'd like to see.  Just ask and your Realtor can tell you.

Thus, most Short Sales do not have to have more than one offer to have it go Pending or Offer Under Review and not even show up.  Our local MLS has started to clamp down on Short Sales who have an "accepted contract" to update it to Pending, instead of leaving it on there so long as "Active" after the fact.  

When Realtors see "Offer Under Review", really what this means is that it is still part of the Active listings WHILE having had to get special written permission from the Seller to continue to market it to try to get back up offers.  Technically it is still under contract while waiting for third party approval(s) from the bank(s).

Banks may want the listing agent to submit more than just the first offer, wasting your time. Back in the day, when most of the market was distressed listings, the MLS would crackdown on the listing agent holding it as Active for too long before updating and taking it down as Pending.

In more rare cases, they are taking other offers, after accepting the first position offer, you can submit a back offer because it could be actually seen along with the first offer.  But before you do, make sure your agent asks the listing agent if it will get seen or not up against how strong the first offer is, otherwise it might be a waste of everyone's time. OK, if you need any more info, please call the number in the top right of the site, and Brian or one of our experts can help further.

Distressed Sellers

If you find yourself in as a distressed seller and need help try our Sell My Home as a St George Short Sale page