By Alan J. Heavens, Inquirer Real Estate Writer

Posted: September 14, 2014

If the only thing standing between you and foreclosure is a short sale, salvation may be just a telephone call away.

That’s the message Robert Acuff of Re/Max Services in Blue Bell wants to send homeowners in distress.

Banks have made great strides in making the short-sale process better, Acuff said. What we struggle with, however, is that people don’t know there is an alternative for them, and they go to foreclosure, instead.

These days, he said, banks want short sales — in which the lenders agree to accept less than is owed on the mortgages — to go through because they are far less expensive for them than foreclosures, so they have continued reducing the time these transactions take.

A major reason for the reluctance among homeowners to ask for help is the feeling that the situation is their fault, which is not true in the majority of cases.

When a short sale does succeed, most of our clients don’t want to come to the closing, Acuff said.

We try to keep the process efficient, so they can move on with their lives, he said.

Acuff and Re/Max Services agent Robert Fehnel readily acknowledge that they are not the only short-sale specialists in the area. They just want to get across the message that a short sale, like obtaining a mortgage modification from a lender or mortgage servicer, is not a do-it-yourself real estate transactions.

Acuff, Fehnel, and other agents in their office have completed a number of the programs that were developed by national and state Realtors’ organizations when the housing bubble burst in 2006-2007.

The agents these courses produced have, in Acuff’s words, the bedside manner of family doctors who also perform major surgery, since it involves a level of detail and follow-through.

The short-sale process is evolving, he said.

As much as the banks try to help, we are still asked for the same things two or three times, Acuff said. You need to be patient and persevere.

In many situations, short-sale specialists often find themselves calling banks 50 times a day.

A series of events have to occur to get these short sales approved by banks, Acuff said, emphasizing that the work must be done because people’s lives are at stake.

Rather than wait for distressed homeowners to come to him, Fehnel said, he seeks them out.

I follow foreclosure listings at the county courthouse, seeing them the first day they are filed, he said.

He’ll send letters to the homeowners, and maybe 5 percent respond. They bury their heads in the sand, he said.

The longer they wait, the worse things get. If homeowners can’t pay their mortgages, it’s a good bet they aren’t able to maintain their homes.

A lot of houses are falling down, Fehnel said.

Every bank has its own system of handling short sales, he said.

There are a lot of people at these banks who don’t know what they are doing, so you keep trying till you can find the right person, he added.

Acuff said banks prefer having real estate agents act as their liaisons with the sellers, and once he receives authorization from a client to deal with a lender, we can get to work.

The key is pricing the house correctly, Acuff said. If that can be done, we’ll try to get it under agreement in 30 days.

The long-term advantage of a short sale is that the seller is able to buy a house again in just two years.

Foreclosures are a longer stain on credit, Acuff said.