Irvinecommuter said:
The California Court Company said:
find out who is the selling agent that represents the bank, make a low ball offer directly to her/him but give $5000 under the table. You get the house.
That's doesn't work. Short sale evaluations are done in-house. They will know a lowball offer when they see it.
Depends on whether the seller really wants out or not and their relationship with the listing agent. The seller picks the listing agent and together they pick which offers get in front of the bank. While the banks have an idea of pricing, they will only see what the seller and listing agent wants them to see. So if the goal is to delay the sale and just live there for a long long time, they will only show really low offers. If the goal is to get out as fast as possible, they will show the best offer.
I have made quite a few offers on short sales both through listing agent and a buyers agent and only times my offers have gotten in front of the bank is when I was with the listing agent.
You can always talk to a listing agent and still put in an offer with your agent. You can straight up ask them if it will help if you went through them. Some will tell you that it makes no difference and that they are simply forwarding every offer to bank. Others will start probing about what kind of offer you are thinking etc. Some ways for them to test out your flexibility for under the table cash is asking if you are interested in buying furniture or renting back to sellers for short period. Both are big no no's on the short sale contracts but if you are prepared to give cash under the table anyway, you would answer that you are open to ideas and flexible in coming up with creative solutions.
Recently, I noticed a lot of short sales are going to auction.com and the MLS is just to advertise the upcoming auction. I think banks are catching on to the games being played.