Tipping Point For Seattle, Bothell, Everett Short Sales

Over the last two years, I, like most realtors, have talked to and worked with many clients facing a short sale. A short sale, for those of you who don’t speak realtor, is the sale of a home for an amount that is less than the loan amount on the home – thus they are short on their sale.  Virtually everyone I have talked with and worked with facing this situation is overwhelmed with some aspect of their financial picture, which can be very stressful and that stress can spill into other parts of their lives.  I have noticed many short sale homes have fallen into either a state of disrepair or are no longer being kept up as a result of the stressful situation, so they are certainly not being kept in the staged to wow and woo a buyer condition that is required to attract the best qualified buyers, which leads me to my few pieces of advice for those facing these circumstances.  One of the books I read this summer is The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (a fascinating book I might add) and it got me to thinking about the correlations between the outrageous crime rate in the 1980′s in New York City that Gladwell describes and the state of many peoples’ homes when faced with a short sale situation.  Gladwell describes the unprecedented numbers of violent crimes in New York City during the 1980′s and the dangerous and dilapidated state of the subway system.  Rather than tackle the murders and drug selling gangs, criminologists James Q. Wilson and George Kelling convinced city authorities to work under ”The Broken Window Theory,” which suggests that if they concerted their efforts to clean up the small evidences of neglect and disarray such as graffiti, the more serious crimes would also decline.  The subway director, David Gunn and future head of NYPD William Bratton saw the wisdom and fought graffiti and fare jumpers vigilantly and the crime rates dropped dramatically.  Rudy Guiliani, when elected mayor, also saw the wisdom of “The Broken Window Theory” and continued the assault on the more minor crimes and not only the minor, but the major crime rates all dropped dramatically.  How does this translate to a short sale?  Well, you may not be able to do anything about the dropping housing values in the Seattle, Bothell or Everett real estate markets, but you can do something about the state of your yard, vacuum your carpet, make all the beds, and wow and woo the buyers who do come to your house.  The declining real estate market may have caught you in a financial bind and left you overwhelmed, but don’t throw up your hands and give up.  Take action and fix the broken windows you do have control over.  Buyers want to fall in love with the house they buy, and they will offer more for a house that is being taken care of, is clean, is staged, and smells good!  Bake some cookies, put flowers in a vase on the table, wash the windows so the sun shines in.  You’ll be amazed at the difference it will make and who knows, maybe your short sale, won’t be as short if the buyer loves the house.  The upsides to having your home in good condition for someone who is selling short are: the reduced impact on your credit from additional months of late or no payments while you house sits on the market unsold, smaller deficiencies to the lien holders, and smaller potential deficiency judgements owed after closing.

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