Short Sale Home » Short Sale Buyers » Making a Short Sale Counter Offer

Although some of your initial offers will be accepted, you need to be prepared that the lender may reject your offer.  But just because the first offer is dead, doesn’t mean you cannot make another.

Here are some things to take into account when making an offer on a short sale:

• Find out why the first offer was rejected
• The offer was too low
• The lender thinks they can do better by waiting or foreclosing on the property
• They do not agree with the terms of the contract
• The loan is government insured and is protected against foreclosure
• The investors of the loan are asking for more money to close out the loan
• The listing agent has made the loss mitigation rep mad and they don’t want to help you
• The hardship was not proven by the homeowner
• The lender would like to explore alternative payment options with the homeowner
• The offer was much lower than the BPO assessed

To find out how much the lender wants on the home, just ask!  You’ll want to make an offer within 85% of the BPO.  You’ll want to make sure that the offer you make is within your comfortable zone.

This formula should work:

Here it is…

Step 1: I take the estimated or actual BPO amount or the value of the house, based on the comps then multiply that number by 85%.

Example:

$175,000 (Estimated BPO value) X 85% = $148.750

Step 2: I then take the number I got and multiply it by 92%

Example:

$148,750 X 92% = $136,850

If this were an actual deal, I would use this final number or something close to give me my counteroffer amount.

Tags: bpo, comps, foreclosure, investors, loss mitigation