Yet another aspect of the insanity of the current marketplace and one that’s becoming more and more prevalent is the practice of dispensing with any and all contingencies in order to get a home in competition. In the last few weeks especially it seems to quickly becoming the norm. Honestly…I hate the idea. Talk about going way out on a limb! First of all, in most of these circumstances there are already inspections done so accepting the property in “As Is” condition and waiving a contingency to do inspections is not really that dramatic. You can, of course, inspect all you want…you just don’t have a contingency to negotiate further over what you might discover. You also can’t back out over these discoveries either.

The long limb really applies to the appraisal and loan contingencies. Since this is a new phenomenon, the values that are coming in on appraisals are typically above the comparable sales for any time prior to mid February 2012. I wrote an offer on a cute townhouse in Palo Alto that was listed for $825,000 and ended up selling someplace north of $900,000. The last unit that sold over there was this same place…and it went for $765,000 in 2010. The winning offer was not only over 900k but had no contingencies of any kind. In essence the buyers are saying “Don’t worry about the appraisal, if it doesn’t come in we’ll go ahead and make up the difference in cash to make this deal close.” This can be pretty risky stuff. You’re really guaranteeing the sale for the seller to get them to take your offer.

It’s not just happening in Palo Alto either. The house at 354 Bluefish in Foster City got a non contingent offer as well. There’s been several others so far this year in FC that have experienced that too…and it looks like that’s what is coming in the future as the norm when writing offers. I really hope it doesn’t. If you don’t have 30% down you’re at risk. I actually had an agent tell me today that she received an offer on a Million dollar plus house where an agent presenting an offer with 40% down apologized for not writing an all cash offer. “I’m really sorry, but my clients need a loan” she heard the agent say. Amazing!

So our brethren north of us in Canada have come up with an interesting slant on real estate transparency. Seems there’s a government agency called the Canadian Competition Commission that’s taking action to force consumers private information that exists now on private MLS pages to be made public. Info such as the sellers phone number and property access information would thereby be made public and would appear on public sites like Trulia, Zillow and Redfin if they’re in those markets. Currently that type of information is kept off of the public versions of those sites for obvious privacy reasons.

There’s plenty of info that the Canadians are going to also make public that already is down here…like closed sales prices and mortgage information. It’s the inclusion of sellers contact info that’s interesting and sort of strange to me here. The seller’s phone number is included in listings so that agents can call and make appointments to show their homes. Often, these numbers are unpublished cell numbers and the inclusion of them to the general public that may often not even be local is sort of a troubling thing to me. I’m thinking I wouldn’t want my number published to anyone who was looking for a house to buy…or whatever else they might want. This is proprietary information that ought to stay that way if you ask me.

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out and whether or not we see something like this around here in the future…in the interest of transparency. Here’s some more on this topic:

http://agbeat.com/real-estate-news-events/canadian-showdown-over-making-homeowners-information-public-in-mls/

So, you think the real estate market hasn’t turned a corner yet, huh? On Sunday I shot a video of a house in Palo Alto for a client who lives in New York….thus the commentary on it. OK, it’s Palo Alto but the story of folks out there looking is becoming more and more common on the entire Peninsula. Check it out.

You know what? Honestly, I really hate short sales. Since they sort of arrived on the scene around here they’ve been a massive pain in the posterior if you ask me. I’m not alone in that estimation either. A short sale (a oximoron if ever there was one) occurs when a homeowner who owes more on his/her loans (and often loans) and puts their home on the market attempting to persuade their lender(s) into forgiving some of their debt to allow the place to be sold. In the past 5 years or so it’s sort of appeared to me that lenders seem to want to torture buyers and agents who are attempting to actually buy one of these places.

Buying a short sale is not for the faint of heart…and certainly not for somebody in a hurry either! They take forever and often it takes months just to get a lender to look at the file. One agent I know spent months just trying to get a return phone call from the relevant person inside a bank holding a loan. I’m not talking about actually negotiating the short sale, months just getting somebody to make an initial contact with a decision maker. Another agent I know was told any offers on a short sale with one particular lender had to be faxed (and faxed only!) to one particular fax machine…that was always busy. Busy at 2:00AM, Busy for 3 weeks straight. If you’re looking for personal growth in the area of patience, try negotiating a short sale. It’s a land where most rules of common sense get redefined.

Historically, short sales are those listings you see that have been on the market forever. the ones with the 3 digit days on market numbers. Not in 2012 though! In yet another sign of the turning of the real estate market so far this year, short sales are not only ratifying early in their listing life…they’re getting multiple offers! You really have no idea how amazing that is to me! In the past 2 weeks alone I’ve seen 5 short sale listings get multiple offers. In Foster City the townhouse at 965Vasco da Gama in Winston Square is getting at least 5 offers this afternoon. Multiple offers on a short sale? Unheard of! The irony is that, now, people are waiting in line…to wait in line again! We’ll now compete for the opportunity to wait for the lenders to take 4 months to look at the file.

I don’t know…I hear that they’re actually getting better at this. I hope that’s true! Keep an eye on the escrows of these short sales. It’s going to be interesting to see how long they take to matriculate in 2012.