Short Sale Mentorship

What do you do if you have some money that you want to invest in real estate, or you know that you have good credit and would be able to get a loan on an investment property, but you really don't want to pay the usual asking price for a house in the current housing environment? There is a way that you can buy a house for less than the usual price, but without being involved with a foreclosure auction, which can have drawbacks. After all, we have all heard about foreclosures where the house is trashed by the angry ex-owner on being evicted, and an auction on the courthouse steps can be intimidating, not to mention the problem that you have to pay up in cash immediately.

The alternative to buying at foreclosure if you want to buy a house at a bargain price is called a short sale, and it happens at the pre-foreclosure stage, before the owners have been thrown out. If you do not know much about the process, it can be very helpful to find a mentor to walk you through it once or twice.

If you know what you're doing, then the process is quite simple. You simply find a house which is going into foreclosure, where the owner is upside down on his mortgage, which means that he owes more than the house is worth. Because the home still has a mortgage secured on it, you need to deal with the lender as well as the owner to make the short sale purchase work.

You then go through a process of negotiation to arrive at a price that is less than the outstanding debt, but acceptable to the lender to release the lien against the house. This can take a while, and you need to know or find out what to do at each stage in the process. However, with the assistance of a short sale mentor, you will find that you are able to pick up an investment property with relative ease at a bargain price. The market has never been better for finding many choices of houses suitable for a short sale.

David Oswald (aka 'The Diamond') is a National Real Estate Short Sale and Foreclosure Expert who speaks throughout the United States on Creative Real Estate Investing Strategies. For more information, go to http://www.DavidOswaldOnline.com