I have a client that may be interested in a pre-foreclosure listing (outside of my normal area, I am not generally familiar with the company or homes). However, the listing agent says that my client cannot view the property until their offer for purchase is approved by the bank. Is this normal- to require a short-sale be purchased sight-unseen?

She said that we could put in a contingency but that seems like a big fat waste of time, money and paperwork to offer first with contingency, wait for the bank to accept the offer, view the property and hate it or find no floor or whatever, and then back out. Plus the agent said "Well our highest offer so far is X" and I don't recall anyone ever sharing that info before but ok.

I haven't seen the paperwork, so I don't know if they'd lose their earnest money either. I don't know if I should tell them this is a good idea, even though the value for what the house "should" be is great and well within their approval amount. What say you?

Sounds stupid to me. Never heard of that on a short-sale.

I can only hope it's the result of CW's change in assigning non-REO Agents to their Bank owned properties.

I'd say there is something fishy going on here.

How about requesting the particular document that states the requirement from the listing agent?

Since it's a short sale situation, the owner still, uh, OWNS the house, not the bank. I don't *think* the bank has the ability to make such a stipulation.

Well, I know the owners own it. I'm just saying if they are trying to avoid foreclosure why would they put that stipulation in there? Don't they want to get out of it? If it's a bank thing, what bass-ackwards bank is it and what good could it do? Goofy crap.

Bid process due at midnight tomorrow. With renters that have 6 months left on the lease. You know, I think stuff like that should be mentioned in the listing. Silly me. Waste of TIME!

That has nothing to do with the bank.This agent is stupid,a bank will NOT say you can't view this house until you put an offer on it.They can't stipulate anything except for the terms under which THEY would accept the short sale,even though the owner owns the house,the lender holds the paper and when they are going to have to discount that paper they have the right to say under what conditions that will happen.

I have had short sales where the loss mitigator said we will only look at one offer,we do not have time to look at multiple offers we are dealing with hundreds of defaulted files on our desks!!

In that instance I had a bid period and at the end of that period I submitted the best terms,price,etc. to the bank for approval.The deal closed no problems the following month.

Every short sale is different and each bank has there own protocol.

It (renters) was just one more (unmentioned) cluster in a big convoluted to-do. The husband wants it bad, the wife is worried they'll get burned. They'll decide tomorrow- and use the allowed contingency if they do bid. Okie-dokie. Sigh.