Short Sales

Going into this whole home-buying business, I was under the impression that there were two ways to sell houses: By the owner (with or without a Realtor), or by the bank. This week I discovered that there was yet another way to sell houses--short sales. 

After doing some reading up on short sales online, I'm surprised that I hadn't already heard of them (since they seem to be quite infamous). And of course, I was looking into short sales because a house appeared on the market two days ago that looked perfect for me and Mr. Cap--but it was, of course, a short sale. 

I'm still waiting for my pre-approval to go through, but our Realtor friend said she'd look into the house and get us as much information as she can about it. She hasn't yet said "Don't go for it", but it seems that very few Realtors are actually interested in spending the time to work through one of these. So although the house looks like it would be an awesome fit for us, the process we'd have to go through in order to purchase the house might not be worth it. It's sort of disappointing to think that we found something that looked like a great fit, but we don't have any real chance at getting it. But I think most people go through this at some point while looking for a house (either it's bought before they can make an offer, or they find out it's a short sale). 

After considering this house, however, I think Mr. Cap is now more interested in purchasing a house than purchasing a condo. When I ran the condo idea past him again a couple days ago, he said "Is it really worth paying over $500 a month in condo fees to have your grass cut and your heating bill paid?". Since Mr. Cap had previously been leaning more towards the condo idea (since he wouldn't have to take care of the outside of the house), I was kind of surprised to hear him say that. But he makes a good point. Even in the coldest months, I don't think we'd be paying $500/month for heat + plowing. And even in the warmest months, I don't think we'd be spending $500/month on cutting the grass. So...unless we found a place with a far more reasonable condo fee (which can be difficult in the area that we live in), a condo is probably not the way to go for us. 

There is one condo location that we liked very much, that has a $215 condo fee. That's a little more reasonable than $500. But the prices of the actual units are outside of what we're willing/able to pay (curses!). I'd absolutely love to live at this complex, since the units are new and it's in a nice quiet area. But paying around $300k for a condo isn't something that we're really ready to do at this point.

So, the search is continuing for us. I think we'll keep looking into that short sale a little bit (because it just looks so right). But I won't be surprised if for 1, our Realtor doesn't want to pursue it, and 2, someone puts an offer in on it before we do. 

On the bright side, I now know what a house looks like that Mr. Cap really likes! I dragged him out of the house to drive by it on Wednesday, and his response was immediately "yes" when he saw it. This is the first time he's responded so immediately and so positively to a location. I'm going to have to tuck that information away to keep in mind later when more houses show up on our e-mail lists. It's such a shame that it's a short sale...