Business

Local real estate agent helps homeowners facilitate short sales

May 24, 2012 Heather Chin
Gary Lewis of MyShortSale.com and Fillmore Real Estate’s Michael Reinhardt, Charles D’Alessandro, and Joseph DeVito.
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It is a buyer’s market, so says everyone from your boss and broker to your mom and next-door-neighbor. Foreclosure rates in the United States may be declining to a level last seen in 2008, but that still leaves one in every 698 housing units in the country, and one in every 3,706 housing units in New York, receiving foreclosure notices as of this April.

Fortunately for sellers, a growing number of banks are looking to unload troubled mortgages by actually paying homeowners to sell their property at a price lower than its market value.

Known as a short sale, this provides long-term relief to struggling homeowners in exchange for a short-term drop in their credit rating. It also gives lenders a chance to turn over problem properties – the loss in profit outweighing the prospect of foreclosure paperwork and possible delinquent payments.

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Short sale was the best option for Jeannette Robertson and her family of four because she had a job offer out-of-state and needed to unload her Canarsie home of just over two years as soon as possible. She and her bank/lender agreed that short sale was the way to go, and the entire process took three months from when the house went on the market in January till the closing in late April/early May.

“The short sale made it more attractive to buyers even though it would have a negative impact on my credit for a short period of time, [so] it was worth it,” explained Robertson of her family’s thought process. “Because we had to move, and based on what was happening in the market in our area, [the house] would have been on the market for a considerable amount of time.”

Robertson’s new employer recommended Fillmore Real Estate to help facilitate the short sale. A privately-owned real estate company in Brooklyn for the past 46 years, Fillmore has 20 offices throughout the borough and aims to expand on its family-friendly work and become known as a leader in short sales, which Fillmore considers another way of helping the community.

“[Short sales] help homeowners sell right before foreclosure, rather than going completely bankrupt,” explained attorney Michael S. Reinhardt, whose family founded and continues to lead Fillmore, whose agents often contact homeowners facing foreclosure to offer their services in helping find a buyer or working with MyShortSale.com to negotiate with the bank.

“In 2006, about one out of four [houses] closed; now it’s about 50 percent,” said Joseph DeVito, a broker, vice president and office manager at Fillmore. “We’re finally getting to the point where it needs to be part of the service, of the realty company.”

For Robertson, the short sale process was “seamless” with an agency like Fillmore and facilitators at MyShortSale.com helping out.

“It was an awesome experience with Fillmore. The agent I worked with came in, we talked about what my options were and she kept me up to date every time she had an open house or if there was interest in the property,” said Robertson. “Once we had a buyer, I never had to talk to the banks again. I didn’t have to worry about a thing except signing papers.”

The only downside, said Robertson, was that as with foreclosure, a house sold on short sale has a negative impact on her credit rating because she wasn’t paying the mortgage for the months up to when the sale closed. And despite having a new buyer, the house still sits on seller’s reports for two years – during which, Robertson explained, she “won’t be able to buy anything” because of her bad credit.

This has made renting a new home in Maryland difficult, said Robertson, who was eventually able to find a landlord who accepted her proof of employment and salary as evidence that she could pay her rent bill on time.

Still, Robertson says the cost “was worth it” and she would recommend Fillmore to friends if they needed it.

Fillmore Real Estate is planning to hold short sale education seminars in the near future.


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