Mahota Real Estate Partners

We know that this time can be very difficult for you. It is our objective to help you short sale your home and move forward from this period in your life as quickly as possible. This document was created to inform you of how we process all of our short sale listings and the expectations that we place on you, as the Seller of the home.

Please read through this entire document, and sign/date the last page to acknowledge your acceptance of our short sale process and the expectations you will be held to.

Who We Are

We are the premier short sale team in the area specializing in homeowners that owe more against their home than it is currently worth—helping them sell their home without bringing any money to closing. We specifically negotiate with your bank(s) to accept less than what you owe them. Homeowners hire us because they understand the value that we offer. This value comes from our experience, results, and process.    

Experience

As a team, we have more than _3_ years experience in negotiating and successfully closing short sales. All of the short sale negotiation is done by members of our team.

Nearly 30% of our business is currently short sales. We have between 2–8 listings at any given moment. While we will never guarantee that we can close every short sale (and we think you should be really leery of anyone that tells you they can), we strongly believe that if it is a deal that can be done, we will get it done!

We believe that we have a short sale process that is unmatched in the industry. From our initial consultation with you through and after the closing, we have a process in place that delivers results and aims to eliminate potential problems. Here’s our process:

• Prior to taking your short sale listing, we collect the “Financial Package” from you, which includes all of the information your bank will request from us.

 • Once an offer is received on your property, your Listing Agent will quickly review that offer with our team and then will contact you and send you the offer that was received for your signature and initials. This offer will have been reviewed to ensure all terms will meet the lenders’ requirements. In some cases, a counteroffer will be generated to ensure the offer meets all necessary terms. It is back to your Listing Agent immediately, as the contract is time sensitive. If you have any questions regarding that contract, please address those with your Listing Agent before signing anything. Upon acceptance, we will also request that you send updated bank statements and paystubs along with the signed contract.

• Once the contract is fully executed, we submit the fully executed contract, a HUD-1, and all of your financial documents to the bank to begin the short sale process (60–120 days is the average length of processing time—some are much quicker, some take up to 120 days). Please be patient throughout this process. At times, you may feel things are moving slowly, but remember this is not a regular transaction and we are doing all we can on our end to make things go as quickly as possible.

• Your bank(s) will then do one or more valuations on the home to identify what they think the home is worth. Once their valuations are back, they’ll review the offer and all corresponding documentation, and finally issue their decision.

• Once the bank accepts the terms of the offer, we’ll issue a document called the Agreement Notice—the notice to all parties that the short sale has been approved. In rare circumstances we will need to go back to the Buyer and tell them why the bank will not accept their offer and give them an opportunity to raise their offer.

Your home will be shown to both investors and traditional buyers through the MLS and many other websites. It is a requirement of ours that your home has a lockbox on it for easy showing access. Statistics have shown over and over again that homes with lockboxes on them sell much faster than those that are by appointment only.

During this process, your home may be shown several times a day. It is your responsibility to make sure the home is in good showing condition and is available to be shown in an appropriate and timely manner. Our mutual goal is to get the highest and best offer in the shortest amount of time.

Part of having your home in good showing condition includes keeping all utilities (electricity, water, gas, sewer, etc.) on at the home for the duration of the sales process. Per the Exclusive Right to Sell/Listing Agreement, it is the Seller’s responsibility to keep all utilities on while marketing the home as well as while we are in the negotiation and closing process. It is imperative that utilities be on at the time of the Buyer’s home inspection.

On some occasions the homes that we list are tenant-occupied rather than owner-occupied. In this situation, it is imperative that you are in full communication with your tenant. Your tenant must agree to sign an agreement with you to vacate the property within two weeks of the bank agreeing to the short sale.

Additionally, we will not list any homes that are tenant-occupied without the written consent of you and the tenant to allow a lockbox on the property and any and all showings of the property with one hour advance notice. We will not list a home if the tenant is not cooperative with any of the above points.

We have created a Tenant Acknowledgment Form for you to use with your tenants. This form includes all of the points covered above and must be signed by you and your tenants prior to the listing of your home.

We understand that there are items in your home you may not want to part with; however, there are several items in every home that are considered “fixtures” according to the sales contract. The following items are considered a fixture and are expected to convey with the home:

If you wish to remove any of the above items, they must be removed prior to the listing appointment and/or any property showings.

To keep you informed throughout the transaction, we have developed a system which will enable you to get updates on your transaction on a regular basis. We use an online transaction management system.

As a courtesy, we will send biweekly email updates to you. We ask that you read your email.

If you receive any documentation in the mail from your bank(s) outside of a standard collection letter, please email or fax us this documentation as soon as possible. Of specific interest to us is anything with a foreclosure sale date on it.

Unless we instruct you to do so, we ask that you have no contact with your lender(s) throughout the short sale process—any contact from you to your lender(s) only complicates the process. If we do need you to contact someone at the bank, we will instruct you to do so and ask that you make this contact within twenty-four hours from the time we make the request.