As I’ve written many times before, divorce sales often have other forms of distress, sometimes financial, sometimes issues with the property condition. This transaction was a hat trick- divorce, short sale, and condition issues with the house.
The home was vacant, and was not initially winterized properly. There were water leaks and subsequent damage, and there were not funds to properly fix the water damage. This is a tough matter to tackle, because water damage can cause mold contamination if not remedied expeditiously.
Part of my value is my contact list. A good agent needs to have more than a good list of mortgage sources, inspectors, title and lawyers. We need to have contractors. We need to know accountants. We need to know all kinds of lawyers. We have to have sources in almost every industry, because housing is tethered to almost every silo of life. In this case, I was able to get a contractor to do me a mitzvah and get paid later, which prevented mold from developing.
I have closed hundreds of short sales, and in New York I’ve learned that the best facilitator of a short sale is a great lawyer. Luckily, the clients took my recommendation for attorney and Laura did a great job in getting the short sale approved by the lender. Having a good specialist makes all the difference. It took 5 months for the lender to approve the short sale, which is actually on the quicker side of a fairly normal time frame.
Lots of moving parts had to be managed. The buyers were represented by another broker, and between the property condition and the time and red tape of getting the short sale approved, it took significant effort to keep them from getting discouraged. There was drama in turning the utilities back on for the appraisal. One of the saving graces of the transaction was that I did not work alone. One of the agents on my team did yeoman follow up work on behalf of me and the seller client which made a huge positive difference. There are many reasons to have a team of agents rather than one solo practitioner on files like this, and in this case it wasn’t just so each spouse had a designee, it was integral to the short sale process and keeping the house in acceptable condition.
In the end, the buyers were ready to close when the short sale was approved by the bank, and we had a successful closing.
