When an offer is made on a short sale on an Overland Park or Olathe home and the seller has approved the offer, in order to expedite the process, can the buyer call the seller’s bank negotiator and talk to them directly to see what it would take to get the bank to accept their offer?

Q: When an offer is made on a short sale on an Overland Park or Olathe home and the seller has approved the offer, in order to expedite the process, can the buyer call the seller’s bank negotiator and talk to them directly to see what it would take to get the bank to accept their offer? My offer was 90% of the seller’s asking price.
–Beverly from Kansas City


A. The quick answer is YES the buyer can call the seller's mortgage lender. The long answer is No they should not contact the seller's mortgage lender and here is why:
1) The listing agents job is to market the home and get the best and highest offer on the seller's home. If the buyer is calling the mortgage lender, they are sending a message that they are anxious. This will almost always guarantee a counter offer. 
2) The mortgage lender will be forbidden to discuss personal information about the seller and their finances to the home buyer. So the home buyer will not get the full scoop.
3) The loss mitigation or prevention representative from the mortgage lender is over worked. The last thing they want is another contact on the file. They prefer only 1 contact. Once an authorized person contacts the representative on a short sale file, the representative will most likely be required to have the legal department review the file for up to 21 days. This is will most likely delay the file.
4) Many short sales are negotiated on Equator, a software that many banks prefer to use  to negotiate short sales recently. In many cases the listing agent communicates with a middle person and never communicates with the mortgage lender anymore. 


Hope this helps. I would not recommend contacting the mortgage lender. I would recommend asking for more or better communication from the listing agent.


RE/MAX sells more homes than any other real estate company.
For a reason...should we talk?

Blog post written by the Dowell Taggart Team of RE/MAX Premier Realty 

Comments are appreciated! Go ahead and add your 2 cents . . .
We have 3 easy steps to find you the perfect home . Click here to get started, today!

Short sales, foreclosures, luxury homes, investor homes, first time home buyer homes, land, investment properties and move up buyers.

Gardner, Olathe, Overland Park, Leawood, Lenexa, Shawnee, Mission, Merriam, Prairie Village, Basehor, Tonganoxie, Lansing, Leavenworth, Spring Hill, Eudora, De Soto, Edgerton, Platte City, Smithville, Gladstone, Liberty, Riverside, Independence, Lee's Summit, Pleasant Hill, Raymore, Belton, Grandview, Raytown, Waldo and the surrounding Kansas City communities.