Dream Town Realty

The answer is no. In actuality, in order to convince the bank to allow you to do a short sale the current owner has to stop making your mortgage payments. The whole point of a short sale is that the owner is no longer able to make their mortgage payment for a reason deemed acceptable by the lending institution. If the current owner is still making payments their request for short sale would hold no water and would be denied. One of our clients was involved in a short sale purchase for seven months before they found out that the claim was denied because the current owner was still making payments.

Without seeing your place here are some things that have helped our clients prepare for sale and reduce market time: Better Marketing – Do you have professional photographs on the MLS? This can make a HUGE difference when people are sorting through a ton of listings. Open Houses, etc. Staging (presentation) – this can make a bad place look great and spacious and a nice place look horrible depending on how your furniture is placed in the house. To quote a wise old agent “the way we live in our house is not the way we sell our house.” This place is no longer your home it is a commodity! You need to remove any bold paint colors that you may have. Put all of your personal stuff such as family photos etc in a box and get them out of there. The goal is to make your place look like something someone could see themselves in. That is harder to do if you have photos of your trip to Aspen on the way etc. Take a hard look at your furniture in the house – now remove at least one third of it; seriously. Get it out of there! Nothing makes a space look cramped like too much furniture. Add light sources such as lamps to every room and make sure they’re all on when you do a showing. This goes without saying, but KEEP YOUR PLACE CLEAN! No clutter, no open toilet seats, no spots on the mirror. Throw some fresh cut flowers on the dining room table (make sure they match the color scheme of their surroundings). Get my point? If you need to fix something, get it fixed, no one wants to hear “oh that’ll be cheap to repair…” People want a unit that is move-in condition, not something that they will have to put time and money into once they move in. Make sure your agent pitches the neighborhood and any building amenities that you have, if any. Good luck! Dream Town Realty Blog: http:www.dreamtown.com

I agree it is important to keep a positive attitude (as many have said in the previous comments). However, when our president is saying these are the worst economic times since the Depression there is some cause for concern. Fortunately, action to right the situation is taking place as we speak. The multibillion-dollar economic stimulus package mentioned above is on the verge of being approved and many Americans are waiting to see how the programs will help the nation move forward this year and next. Among the proposed items are job creation (over 2 million by the end of 2010), funding to state governments, money for school construction, individual tax credits, subsidies for health care premiums with COBRA and Medicaid, extended unemployment benefits, college tax credit expansion, and financial aid toward infrastructure projects. There is debate over whether the economic stimulus package is a long-term fix for the problems at hand. For instance, how will it help those in danger of loosing their homes to foreclosure? Buyers coming into the housing market would benefit from a repeal to drop the repayment requirement for the first-time home buyer’s tax credit, which would be available up to $8,000 under the new plan. The tax break applies to homes purchases before the end of 2009. The new bill would also increase loan caps on federally-backed mortgages to $729,750 in high-priced real estate markets (previously capped at $625,000). With this inclusion, borrowers can get more affordable loans on properties that would not have been considered for a conventional loan before. According to reports, the cap expansion would be temporary. The stimulus bill is expected to be passed this weekend, but readjustments have already pushed it back from originally forecast approval dates. Chicago Real Estate | Chicago Condos | Real Estate in Chicago