In California, from the month you stopped making your first mortgage payment, your lender may wait 2 to 3 months or more before filing a Notice of Default (NOD). Once the NOD is filed, the clock stars ticking. Your lender will have to wait 90 days to file another Notice of Trustee Sale (NOTS). Once NOTS is filed, your lender can publish the trustee sale date 21 days after. So in brief, once NOD is filed usually it takes about 4 months to foreclosure. Before the actual trustee sale (or foreclosure sale) date, your lender may postpone the trustee sale in case they want to consider you for a short sale, loan modification, or bankruptcy. However, there is no guarantee the lender will do that if the time of application is too short. Once the trustee sale happens, the property will transfer back to the bank and the bank will list the property and sell it themselves.

Short Sale Process

Short sale takes time. It is not that having it approved is really all that difficult, but instead it is due to the fact that the lenders have overwhelming numbers of files so in order to get your file reviewed it takes such a long time to wait in line for it to happen. This short sale process flow chart shows exactly how a typical short sale process looks like and what to expect in different periods of the sale, from the initial marketing of the property, to submitting the short sale package, to the long period of idle time of waiting for short sale review, to eventually the escrow process.

Important Role of Short Sale Listing Agent

The role of the listing agent in short sale is extremely important. Short sale is not easily managed by any agent. You need an experienced agent who lives and breathes short sale transactions on a daily basis. This way you can avoid many unforeseen issues and save lots of unnecessary headache. Better yet, your chance of having the short sale approved and avoiding the foreclosure will be much higher, working with a certified short sale agent who have closed a lot of short sale transactions. We at RE/MAX Execs short sale team have gone through lots of training for short sale and distressed properties and we can provide the peace of mind that you are looking for in a tough situation.

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The above information was gathered by our research and work experience as real estate agents working on distressed properties. Please note we are not attorneys or accountants and we do not provide legal or tax advises. Please consult your own attorney and accountant for legal and tax advises.