Tag Archives: Leawood Short Sales

Johnson County Kansas Homeowners Facing Foreclosure Should Consider A Short Sale

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The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

Do you know someone facing foreclosure on the their home in Kansas City, Johnson County KS, Overland Park, Olathe, Leawood, Shawnee, Lenexa or in the surrounding area?  Have them contact us to discuss getting their home sold in a Short Sale! A Short Sale means working to get the homeowner’s lender to accept selling the home at a price SHORT of the amount needed to pay off the mortgage loan balance.

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Why should a Short Sale be considered?  It can help the owner avoid a dreaded foreclosure… It can reduce the damage to the owner’s credit history… It may allow for buying another home within 1 to 2 years… It can offer the peace of mind of settling the mortgage debt… The homeowner doesn’t pay the real estate commission… The homeowner doesn’t pay for any home inspection repairs… The owner lives in the home during the process…  Kansas “redemption” laws allow 90 days AFTER a foreclosure sale takes place to continue working to complete a Short Sale.

At no cost to the homeowner, The Jason Brown Group can assess the viability of moving forward with a Short Sale. Most lenders want to AVOID taking on another foreclosure, so there’s EVERY reason to attempt to sell a home in a Short Sale when foreclosure is the alternative!  Click here to learn more about the Short Sale process and how we go to work to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.


Posted by Jason Brown

Do You Know Someone In Johnson County Who’s Faced With Losing Their Home To Foreclosure?

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Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

If you know anyone who’s struggling to make their mortgage payments, they’re surely pondering the options for selling their home. If they don’t have the money to pay the real estate commission or are upside down even more than that amount on their home, then this often leaves homeowners in a paralyzed state. What a LOT of homeowners don’t realize is that they can try selling their home in a Short Sale and the seller would NOT be responsible for paying the resulting real estate commissions.

If you’re unfamiliar with the process, a Short Sale means a seller sells their home to a buyer at an amount that nets “short” of how much is needed to pay of the outstanding mortgage balance(s). While selling in a Short Sale will likely put a hit on the seller’s credit, it’s nothing like the hit a foreclosure will do. In fact, many people who sell their homes in a short sale are able to regroup their finances and purchase another home within a couple of years. That’s not going to happen for someone who loses their home in foreclosure.

You may be wondering how a seller gets out of paying the real estate commissions… It’s because the seller’s lender pays it. Why and how? Any lender who will consider a Short Sale understands the seller doesn’t have the ability to pay it themselves (remember, the seller can’t even afford to continue making their mortgage payments). Once a buyer makes an offer and the seller accepts (with the understanding the deal won’t happen if the seller’s lender doesn’t accept a short sale), then the offer is submitted to the seller’s lender… and the lender will factor the real estate commissions into the equation for whether they’ll accept the Short Sale offer.

As far as the process, it’s complicated for real estate agents, no doubt about it. It can easily take 10 times the work – and sometimes triple or longer the time – to get a Short Sale completed. Sometimes a lender will doom the process… they’re often disorganized, sometimes difficult and occasionally non-responsive. But this is what we agree to take on when we take a Short Sale listing. I don’t think 90% of agents understand what they’re getting into when they list a Short Sale. We do… And it’s certainly a process that requires organization and persistence.

Our Short Sale listings get the same attention to detail and care that all our listings get. So if you know someone who… owns a home that’s lost value… doesn’t have the money to pay a real estate commission… has lost their job… can’t afford their home due to a divorce… Or something similar, then there’s a good chance we can help them. Have them email me and we’re happy to go over their situation in detail to see how we can help.


Posted by Jason Brown

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10% Of Kansas City Metro Area Homes For Sale Are Short Sale Listings

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Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

If you are upside down on your home or needing to sell and teetering on a break-even, it can be a very stressful time. If this is you, you’re not alone because around 10% of the homes for sale in Kansas City, Johnson County Kansas and the surrounding areas are Short Sales. We get calls all the time from people needing help in determining if they’ll be able to sell in a traditional sale or if they’re going to need to get short sale approval from their lender.

Seller’s who are upside and in a situation they need to sell, can bring the cash to closing to make the sale happen. This happens more than you may realize and is a way to save your credit and make the problem go away. But for the majority of seller’s who are upside down on their home, they don’t have the cash needed and they’ll need to get their lender on board with selling the home in a Short Sale. If you know someone who is facing losing their home in foreclosure, you can recommend they contact us to discuss the process and their situation. If we can achieve a successful short sale, the lender pays all the real estate commissions and many sellers are unaware of that important detail.

Anyone who needs to sell their home in a short sale will want to act quickly because the law that has allowed short sale sellers to avoid tax consequences is set to expire December of this year. If that happens, sellers could have tax consequences on the amount of the loan written off as a loss by the lender. I’m just a real estate agent so be sure to contact a tax adviser with all tax related questions. The average short sale is taking more than four months to complete, so if that tax law isn’t renewed, selling a home in a short sale next year will be less appealing than it is today.


Posted by Jason Brown

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Leawood Kansas Kansas Real Estate Update – September 2011

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Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

Real Estate Statistics On Leawood Kansas
15 Day Glance At The Leawood KS Real Estate Market

After calculating the absorption rate over the past 15 days in Leawood Kansas, we find the city has 12.5 months of inventory currently on the market. This amount of inventory indicates it remains a buyer’s market in the city of Leawood. The sales rate over the past 15 days will need to pick up to eat into the 325 homes for sale in Leawood. The average home that sold (closed) in Leawood the past 15 days did so for around $364,000, while the average new listing came on the market at just above $441,000.

Type # Average $ Avg DOM
Listings Past 15 Days 42 $441,102 –
Total Active Listings 325 – –
Newest Contracts Written 29 $449,890 178
Newest Sold (Closed) 13 $363,746 158

* The Average $ of Newest Contracts Written considers the list price when the homes went under contract. Data pulled from Heartland MLS and deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Low samplings in a category can skew results. Stats cover approximately 15 days from post date. DOM = Days On Market.

There was a promising trend with the homes that went under contract the past 15 days as the average list price of those homes was nearly $450,000 (list price when the homes went under contract). The volume of homes that went under contract was also more than double the number of homes that closed during the same 15-day period. If you’re making plans to buy or sell a home in Leawood Kansas, we can guide you through the process. Please let us know more about your real estate goals and learn more about how we can help you with selling your Leawood home or with buying a Leawood home.

Leawood Kansas Relocation Information

Search Leawood Kansas Homes For Sale

View Additional Real Estate Stats On Leawood Kansas

Our Leawood Kansas Buyer’s Agent Services

Our Leawood Kansas Listing Agent Services


Posted by Jason Brown

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Deciding Whether Selling Your Overland Park Home In A Short Sale Makes Sense?

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Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

If you’re behind on your mortgage or thinking you’re about to get behind on your mortgage payments, now is the time to sit down with an Overland Park Realtor and discuss your options. But don’t sit down with just any agent, make sure you sit down with an agent who understands the Short Sale process. Most agents don’t have a complete grasp on the complicated process and getting hooked up with the right agent can easily double or triple your chances of success.

We go through a checklist of questions to help determine whether we think a homeowner has a good chance at achieving a successful Short Sale. A Short Sale can be more or less complicated depending on whether there’s just one lender involved or whether a second loan has been taken out on the home. Finding out who all has an ownership interest in the property is critical in devising an out plan for each party involved. We need to know if a seller has received a Notice of Default from their lender because time is of the essence more than ever when dealing with a Short Sale.

We always want to be sure a homeowner has exhausted any possibilities to stay in the home, such as refinancing or asking their lender whether a loan modification is possible. Every homeowner’s situation and goals will lead to different questions being asked. We are constantly working to get a complete picture of what we’re up against. So that we can see all lien’s that have been placed against a property, we get our home sellers a free preliminary title report so we can see exactly what it’s going to take to achieve a successful Short Sale.

There’s a lot of work to be done to get a lender to even CONSIDER a Short Sale, much less accept one. From pin-pointing the hardships that have occurred to cause the situation to helping clients explain these hardships to their lender, we’re there every step of the way. If you’re in a distressed situation with your home and think a Short Sale may be a possibility for you, we’re happy to discuss your situation.

Posted by Jason Brown

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Some Preliminary Aspects Of A Short Sale For Sellers And Buyers To Consider

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Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

If you’ve been following along, you know that Short Sales can be a great alternative to foreclosure for homeowners who are upside down on their homes. But Short Sales aren’t easy and if you’re thinking of buying or selling a home in a Short Sale, there are a few things to consider before starting the process. For starters, sellers will have to accept giving up information to their listing agent that they’d be able to keep confidential in a typical resale transaction.


When dealing with Short Sales, the listing agent will need to be in direct contact with the seller’s lender and will need honest, accurate information from the seller if there’s any chance of achieving a successful Short Sale. Sellers should also consider they likely won’t be able to buy a home in the next 12 to 24 months. For buyers, Short Sale listings are often in better condition than foreclosure listings. That could mean saving thousands of dollars. Generally speaking, the condition of a Short Sale property will be some where in between a typical resale property and a foreclosure property. Same goes for the typical sales prices on Short Sales.

I don’t recommend a buyer or seller attempt selling in a Short Sale if they don’t have a lot of patience. It’s not an easy process. It might be 10 times harder than a typical real estate transaction. It can take 60, 90, 120… days to get word from the seller’s lender on whether they’ll accept a Short Sale. If you’re a buyer who needs a home that can close in a predictable time frame, just go ahead and eliminate all Short Sale listings off your list.

Also consider that the lender is going to rely almost exclusively on a Broker Price Opinion (BPO)  that it will order from a third-party real estate agent. If the value indicated in that BPO or appraisal is too high, the bank is likely to say no to the Short Sale and foreclose on the property (believing they’ll net more that way than by accepting the Short Sale). Don’t forget that the seller’s lender is under absolutely no obligation to accept a Short Sale – and thus a loss – on the home.

Another critical aspect of the Short Sale process is the listing agent involved. The listing agent is certainly the most important person in the transaction. Without a solid listing agent, a good buyer’s agent will be spinning their wheels. The listing agent is the only one who can contact the seller’s lender, so it’s worth checking with a listing agent before you make an offer to be sure the agent has a clue of how the process works.

Posted by Jason A. Brown

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