How To Survive A Short Sale

By Lisa Chambers and Alan Chambers

Owe more on your house than it’s worth?

Late on payments?

Facing foreclosure?

Heard horror stories
about short sales?

Those horror stories are true. Short selling your house can be extremely time consuming, frustrating, emotional, stressful, and all-around awful.

You want to sell your house FAST, EASY. Dump your burden and get on with your life. How to Survive A Short Sale is your answer.

How to Survive A Short Sale is like having Steven King in your family room, telling you exactly what twist the plot will take next, taking the stress out of it, answering questions like...

What if I get a foreclosure notice?
Did the bank really lose my paperwork again?

What's the one thing to avoid when talking to the bank?

Packed with tips and inside views from sellers who survived 12 short sales, How to Survive A Short Sale will pop your eyes open!

Why not file bankruptcy?

What does an approval letter look like?

How do I stay married through all this?

Can my best friend buy my house and then transfer it to me?

What is a short sale?
Need a short sale definition?
Okay, suppose you bought your house five years ago for $100,000. Your loan on the house is about $80,000, but today the house is worth $60,000. That is a short sale, because when you sell the house, you’ll be “short” of the money needed to pay off your loan.

GUARANTEED! If you read the book and it doesn’t help you survive your short sale, contact the authors with your online receipt within 30 days for a full and complete refund. GUARANTEED!

If you’re facing a short sale, it could be that you’re not exactly flush with cash at the moment. A hardcopy, bound version of this book would easily sell for $24.95. As an ebook How To Survive A Short Sale is affordable to the very people who need it right now at only $8.95. Download it instantly, right onto your computer, ipad, kindle, or other reading device.

Today’s quote:
“It’s not whether you get knocked down.
It’s whether you get back up.”
Vince Lombardi

P.S. Do you dare leave the success or failure of your short sale up to your realtor? Don’t care whether you have “Paid in full for less than owed” or “Foreclosed” on your credit report? Wonder if you can make a difference in your successful short sale? Download now!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lisa Chambers
• Release date: Apr 11, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458135339

Lisa Chambers

Husband and wife team Alan and Lisa Chambers built a real estate empire one brick at a time, and now sold it all, one house at a time. They bought and fixed up houses, bulding a portfolio of twenty or so houses. They short sold all of the houses with the real estate crash of 2008 and wrote How to Survive A Short Sale to help others avoid foreclosure via short sales.Alan Chambers is a licensed architect and graduate of California Polytechnic University, Pomona. Lisa Chambers is a graduate of the University of Puget Sound, award-winning non-fiction writer, contributor to half a dozen published books. She is the founder of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Butte County. Both are Compassionate Samurai graduates through Klemmer and Associates. Winners of First Prize Family Fun Volunteers Contest.They live with their children in Chico, California.

Book preview

How to Survive

A Short Sale

Everything You Need to Know

From a Couple Who’s Survived 12 Short Sales

By

Alan & Lisa Chambers

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2001 Alan Chambers

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover image courtesy of Feverpitched & Dreamstime.com

Cover by Joleene Naylor

Acknowledgements: Thank you to Brian, who first gave us the idea for this book, and who taught us always to play win-win. Thank you Lee Hartley. Thank you to all of the real estate agents we have worked with over the last thirty years, especially Cathy Comeaux Goldwasser, Dave Junco and Barbara Weibel.

~~~

This publication is designed to inform and provide general information regarding the subject matter. However, laws and practices vary from state to state and are also subject to change. Because each factual situation is different, specific advice should be tailored to the particular circumstances. The reader is advised to consult with his or her own advisor regarding his or her specific situation. The authors have taken reasonable precautions in the preparation of this book and believe the facts presented in this book are accurate as of the date it was written. However, the author does not assume any responsibility for errors or omissions. The authors specifically disclaim any liability resulting from the use or application of the information contained in this book, and the information is not intended to serve as legal advice related to individual situations.

~~~

Dedicated to our wonderful kids.

Don’t make the mistakes we did.

Contents

Chapter 1: Losing Our Real Estate Fortune

Chapter 2: Jumping Off the Cliff

Chapter 3: Get That House Listed!

Chapter 4: That Offer is Coming!

Chapter 5: Hurry Up and Wait: Short Sale Approval

Chapter 6: Problems, Problems

Chapter 7: Dump the House, Keep Your Spouse

Chapter 8: Doing the Tenant Tango

Chapter 9: Uncensored: Our Short Sales

Chapter 10: Climbing Out of The Pit

Appendix: Hardship and Approval Letters

Chapter 1

Losing Our

Real Estate Fortune

We love real estate. Houses, buying them, fixing them up, selling them, talking about them, touring them, we love it all. Perhaps you love real estate, too, though you may not be feeling so great about it right now. The last couple of years have been brutal for everyone. We made our first million in real estate in our early 30’s and built up to a net worth of about $2.5 million at its height. Then came the financial meltdown that led to our hobby as sellers of short sales.

How to Make a Million Dollars in Your Spare Time

Our story starts over 20 years ago when we bought our first house, nothing down, using OPM: Other People’s Money. It was a dump, a fixer in terrible condition. We learned to paint, spackle, plumb, insulate, repair, paint, lay bricks, landscape, grow grass, and, did we say paint? Two years later, we sold the house at a profit of $80,000, and we were on our way. Three fixer-uppers later, Alan got to design our dream home and we watched it being built. A couple years after we moved in, two things happened. One, Alan made an offer to purchase the architectural firm he was working for, but the deal didn’t work out. Two, Alan performed the sad duty of being a pallbearer for the wife of his lifelong best friend. Life is too short. So he quit his job and we went into business for ourselves, buying houses, fixing them up, and selling them. It was a blast and we were good at it, too. Talk about work you love, this was it.

But Where is All Our Money Going?

Then we started to make mistakes. Sold a house and exchanged into others, but we didn’t fully investigate our numbers and ended up with a huge negative cash flow. No problem, just make more money, or so we thought. Then we found a financial planner who had a novel real estate investment company and he invited us to invest in it. It was very different and would enable us to help first-time homebuyers. We did our due diligence, hiring a private investigator to check his background and having attorneys review the business plan. When no alarms went off, we jumped in with both feet. We were so excited about this business that Alan went to work for the company.

A couple years later, we attended a two-hour class called Living in the Black about the high cost of credit debt. We came home from the class and cut up all our credit cards, determined never to use them again. Further examination of our financial situation using software recommended in the class revealed that we were headed for bankruptcy. Bankruptcy?! How could that be? We had an excellent income. But we learned that the high cost of carrying all the properties we owned was claiming every dime of that income, and then some. The software indicated that it would take us fifty-three years to pay off all that debt. That is, if we lived that long! We finally figured out that we were in trouble, but we didn’t know what to do. Our financial planner kept assuring us that his plan would solve all our problems, but we began to wonder. Our gut alarm was telling us that something wasn’t right.

We identified the biggest cash-losing houses we owned, and listed them for sale. But it turned out our effort was too little, too late.

A Financial Meltdown

At our financial planner’s real estate investment company, rumors began flying. Our financial planner started to sound like Bernie Madoff. Then one day in August 2009, the FBI seized all the assets, computers and files of the firm, and shut down the operation. Alan was suddenly unemployed and our financial plan was a financial nightmare. We started listing more properties for sale. We moved out of our beautiful custom home and rented a house in another city where, hopefully, Alan could find another job.

How We Made the Decision to Short Sell

Then came September 2008, and the value of all of our properties began to drop dramatically, leaving almost all of them worth less than the mortgage. Our income was a fraction of what it used to be, and the money we’d always held in reserve for an emergency like this was gone, lost in our financial planner’s mess. We began calling our lenders and speaking to people in the loss mitigation department, something we’d never dreamed we’d have to do. With much dread, we realized we couldn’t make mortgage payments, that we’d have to let go of everything we’d spent twenty years building, and decided to sell everything. Because the values of our properties had dropped so low, that meant short selling.

We dropped the prices on homes we already had listed. Then we started to list our other properties, one this week, another the next. Listing our principal residence, the beautiful dream home Alan had designed and built, was gut-wrenching. In the back of our minds, we both hoped we’d find some way out of this mess before it sold. Somehow, we thought, there might be a way to keep it. We decided not to list two rentals that had a positive cash flow, but several months later, those went, too.

It was a tough time, the toughest time we’ve had financially in our entire lives. Collectors calling, five or six properties in short sale at the same time, trying to figure out how to pay the rent and keep food on the table when we barely had two nickels to rub together. We dealt daily with the deep embarrassment of the financial mistakes we had made combined with the shame of having not only believed in that financial planning firm, but actually promoted it to other people, and worked for it. It was an overwhelming feeling of regret and shame that is hard to describe.