Question: We heard from an agent who has a potential client who just called her in dire straits. The client worked with her lender last year to do a loan modification because her ARM had reset and her payments went sky high. The lender did modify her loan last summer and the client signed off on it. Two months later the lender raised her mortgage payment. The amount went up high enough that she couldn't make the complete payment. She called the lender again, but never got a resolution. She is now 4 months behind and just got the letter from the lender saying they intend to foreclose and an auction date has been set.

Can this home be saved from auction or is it too late? The client has not had the home on the market for 90 days before submitting it for a short sale. Would the bank even consider it?

Our Answer: I would say yes, that it is not too late to help this client. We have had deals that we got 2-3 weeks before auction that had not been previously listed and we were able to successfully get them pulled. The key to getting a property pulled from auction is to submit an offer.... even if you think it will be too low... often times the bank will pull the house from auction just so they can have time to review it.

Question: An agent wrote in this week asking about how to handle a situation where the foreclosure auction date is quickly approaching and the only offer he has received on his Short Sale listing is from a Buyer who must sell another home (a contingency offer) in order to close on the Short Sale purchase. The agent said he knows we don't typically send in offers from buyers with contingencies to sell another home but he is desperate. He has an Indymac conventional lien holder on this listing and the foreclosure date is two weeks out. He wants to know if it be worth sending in the offer to get the foreclosure stopped or if we think they would catch it immediately. Another option might be to have the buyer remove the contingency and take a chance that their home will sell during the approval time. What can he do?

Our Answer: If the offer with the contingency is your only offer, then yes... send it.