The mortgage risk analysis firm, Clayton Holdings, completed an extensive study of the financial results of short sales and foreclosures, and they concluded that a Short Sale Reduces the Loss to the Lender as Compared To Taking the Property Through Foreclosure.
Clayton reports that loss severities for short sales are 13% lower than loss severities for REO sales (that’s a sale of Real Estate Owned by the bank after foreclosure). In addition, for states with extended foreclosure timelines, the short sale loss severities dropped to 26% below REO loss severities. In addition, their data shows that a short sale incurs about half the fees and advances of an REO sale.
The report indicates that lenders/servicers with dedicated short sale teams are doing far better in limiting loss severity and shows that servicers with the lowest loss severities for short sales employ a variety of strategies including outsourcing, utilizing dedicated short sale teams, and setting list prices based on historical and geographical REO net proceeds. Those services with dedicated teams bring unique skill sets to the negotiation of the short sale and remove a significant volume of calls from the general loss mitigation queue.
Basically, this report proves everything we have been telling the lenders for the last few years. It is clear that a short sale saves the lender time and money. If reducing losses doesn’t motivate the lenders to cooperate in the short sale process, then nothing will.
Statistics show that a majority of short sales fail if they are handled by a traditional real estate agent, even those claiming to be short sale “experts”. However, if you have an Attorney/Realtor® from Lawyers Realty Group on your side, you receive full and complete representation along with the power of California law. This allows a near 100% success rate on our short sales. Our success rate and the level of protection that we provide for homeowners are unmatched in the industry.
