Short sale or cash sale on your Amityville house: the one test
A short sale and a cash sale are not two options you pick between on preference. One number decides it. If your Amityville house is worth more than the mortgage payoff, you have equity, and an ordinary cash sale protects it. If the payoff is higher than the house is worth, no buyer can pay enough to clear the debt, and a short sale is the route, because only the lender can agree to accept less than it is owed.
Get the written payoff from your servicer first. Until you have that figure, nobody can honestly tell you which of the two you are looking at.
What a short sale actually involves
A short sale needs three things: a hardship documented well enough for the servicer to act on, a buyer credible enough that the file does not collapse partway, and patience. Short sale approval is measured in months rather than weeks, and it moves at the servicer's pace.
What a short sale is not is fast, and it is not something a buyer can force. What a buyer can do is arrive with a clean contract, answer every request the same day, and stay in it when the file goes quiet for three weeks. That is most of what separates a short sale that closes from one that stalls out.
Why local knowledge changes the number
A five-bedroom on Sunshine Lane. A house on Washington Avenue. Both in Amityville, bought and paid for by us.
Amityville is roughly 9,500 people in Suffolk County, ZIP 11701, and the housing stock is mostly colonial, victorian, cape cod. Around Broadway and the Triangle, most of it is old enough that the mechanicals are on their second or third life. The Amityville stop pulls buyers who commute, which supports the good houses and does very little for the ones that need a roof. We have been buying across Suffolk County for 15+ years. We know what the Amityville Union Free School District does to a resale price, which blocks still have oil tanks in the ground, and what a house like yours is actually worth here.
Where we fit, on either route
If you have equity, we are the simple route: a written cash sale number, a closing date you choose, no repairs, and no financing to fall through.
If you are underwater, a short sale is the route and we can work it with you. We know what a Suffolk County servicer wants in the package, roughly how long short sale approval takes, and where these files usually stall. We also bring in the attorneys and HUD-approved housing counselors we have used for years when a situation needs them, and we do that whether or not the house ends up being ours.
Why the short sale clock matters when a sale date exists
A cash sale on an Amityville house moves at whatever speed you want, because the funds are not conditional on anything. A short sale moves at the servicer's speed, and the servicer is being asked to approve a loss.
So the practical advice is the same on either route: start earlier than feels necessary. A short sale begun months before a sale date has room to breathe. The same short sale begun three weeks out is a race, and it is one you do not control.
How selling a house in a short sale in Amityville works
- 1
Start with the basics
Where the house is (11701) and a rough sense of its condition is all we need to begin. Call or use the form. Nothing needs fixing or clearing out beforehand.
- 2
We walk through it once
A single visit by one person, normally under thirty minutes. With a colonial or victorian built when most of Amityville was, the roof, heating and electric matter far more to us than the kitchen does.
- 3
You see the number
Within a day you get our offer as one written figure. Get a Suffolk County agent's opinion alongside it if that helps. For a house that could go on the market as it stands, listing may come out ahead, and we will tell you if so.
- 4
Closing happens on your date
If you need it done quickly, it can be. If probate, a tenant or a move means waiting, we wait. What you skip is the 80 to 95 days an Amityville listing usually spends on finding a buyer and then on that buyer's lender.
Deficiency, credit and taxes: ask before you choose
Owners often ask which is worse for their credit, a short sale or a foreclosure. The honest answer is that it depends on how it is reported and on your wider picture, and a credit counselor can give you a better read on that than a buyer can.
What we can tell you is the transactional difference. A cash sale with equity behind it pays the mortgage off and you keep the balance. A short sale pays the servicer less than it is owed, on terms set out in an approval letter that an attorney should review before you sign it.
What you do not pay when you sell a house in a short sale
Listing a house in a short sale the usual way brings each of these costs with it. Selling to us brings none of them.
- Agent commission
- $30,563 at 5% of the Amityville median none
- Seller closing costs
- About $12,225 on a $611,250 sale. We can cover these. none
- Repairs to make it listable
- Whatever the house needs, paid up front none
- Cleanout and removal
- Charged by the truckload, and done before the first showing none
- Carrying costs while it waits
- Taxes, insurance and utilities across the 80 to 95 days it takes to find a buyer and then wait on their lender none
Get the number on your Amityville house, then decide
Ask your servicer for a written payoff statement. Not the balance on the last statement, and not what you originally borrowed. The payoff includes arrears, fees and interest through the closing date, and it is the number that decides whether you are looking at a cash sale or a short sale.
It takes one phone call and you are entitled to it. Bring that figure to us and we will give you a written offer on an Amityville house alongside a straight read on which route it puts you on.
Common questions
Do you handle short sales in Amityville?
We do. A short sale is a different animal from an ordinary purchase, and we have taken plenty of them through to closing in Suffolk County. Tell us the payoff figure and where the file stands and we will tell you what we think.
How do I find out what I owe on the mortgage?
Ask the servicer for a written payoff statement. It is your right to have one and it takes a phone call. That figure, set against what the house is worth, is what decides between a short sale and a cash sale.
Can I do a short sale on an Amityville house if foreclosure has already been filed?
A short sale and a foreclosure frequently run at the same time, and the short sale has to outpace the calendar. It can be done and we have been through it. Tell us where the Amityville case stands, and speak to an attorney the same week.
Which is better for me, a short sale or a cash sale?
It is not really a preference. If an Amityville house is worth more than the payoff, take the cash sale, because it is faster and simpler. If it is not, the short sale is the route, and we can work it with you.
Will I walk away with money from a short sale?
A short sale is about clearing the debt rather than producing proceeds. If there is equity, you are not in a short sale at all, which is the first thing worth checking. Get the written payoff before you assume it either way.