I felt like some craggy old-time detective, hitting the bricks of Queens Blvd., Astoria Blvd., Broadway, Steinway St., up and down the numbers, wearing out my weary soles. Tracking down lead after lead and coming home with nothing but another piece of gum on my shoe. I had all the clues. I knew these neighborhoods. I was born in Ditmars. 

I’d seen foreclosure come winging down out of the sun to carry distressed properties off to the auction block. I could hear, in the leafy anonymity of this urban jungle, hurting homeowners crying out for the sweet release of a short sale. But I just couldn’t put it together. Day after day, trial after trial, coffee after coffee, I never solved my most elusive case—finding the perfect short sale home in Queens, NY. 

Don’t make the same mistake I did, kid. Buying short sale homes here isn’t all just caviar and cigarettes—and that goes double when you’re trying to go it alone. Let me tell you how it is. 

Who’s Looking for That Short Sale Home in Queens NY? 

Everybody. Me, you, your great-aunt, and the family dog. That’s because a short sale seems like such a meaty opportunity that it gets the whole block salivating. Here’s the dish: when a homeowner can’t make their mortgage, the bank says—“your money or your house.” They’ll scar the owner’s credit report, file for foreclosure, then unload the property at auction. Nobody wants that. Unless there’s a better way, see? 

The bank is losing money on these deals, starting with the mortgage. They may have been expecting another 25 years of payments to come in from the homeowner. If the bank forecloses, they lose all future mortgage payments. On top of that, they’re shelling out big money to their legal teams to process the foreclosure paperwork to relist the property for auction. Are they going to make back their losses? No. That ship has sunk—they’re just looking for a lifeboat. 

Here’s your better way. After mortgage delinquency but before the auction, you, me, or the dog step in and offer to buy out the property. This gets the homeowner off the hook, letting them swim off safely to a smaller pond. This also still puts dinner on the bank’s table—they won’t get to keep collecting on the mortgage, but they do get enough of a lump sum that they can call it a wash. It saves them the headache of legal proceedings and uncertain auction rewards as well. And, of course, one of us gets to buy a property for less than full market value. If everything goes according to the plan, that is. 

Short Sale Homes in Queens NY: El Dorado or Just a Lot of Swamp? 

You got this blog open in one tab, you got Zillow open in the next, and you’re thinking: what’s this sap talking about? There’s a whole forest of foreclosures listed here. Sure. Try buying one. Zillow has a lot of data, but that data has a lot of holes. You’ll have to spend some significant time chasing down lead after lead, on email, on the phone, and on the street. I mean, feel free though. Just be sure to bring a lot of water with you in the summer. Probably an extra shirt, too. You’ll be sweating out there. 

Certainly, there are other online options—foreclosure.com seems like a reasonable place to find foreclosures, right? For $40/ month, you can find plenty. Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands. They’re like grains of sand in the Rockaways. All you have to do is sift through them to find the one or two properties you might be able to talk the bank into reversing their course on and selling short. Maybe you can find your property this way, but I wouldn’t quit your day job while you’re looking. 

It’s the same story with Realtor.com. There’s innumerable listings—especially considering you’ll really be looking at all three sites. Houses on this website, though, can be listed as a short sale even before the owner has lender approval. You can spend weeks working on a deal that simply doesn’t exist. It’s like chasing ghosts through quicksand. 

Alright, alright, they’re not all bad deals. One in a thousand of these online listings might meet all the criteria for a sound short sale investment. The problem here is, you’re one of a thousand people looking for that same deal, on that same website. Here in New York, agents have to keep submitting offers on short sale properties even after yours has been approved, catching you up in a potential bidding war. How high can you go before you’re swapping your black pen for a red one? 

Finally, the one thing a short sale is not, is short. These deals can take you months or more to sew up, and there’s no way to be sure it’s going to hold until it’s done. The lender is under no obligation to respond to your sale request promptly, or at all. Why get strung along so long when you could be making better deals—or even just collecting your old salary! 

Solving Short Sale Homes in Queens, NY

As far as my own investigation into short sale homes in Queens, I decided to let the case go cold. I had tracked down lead after lead to run into one dead end after another. But I didn’t take a step backward, to my savings, my investments, my old job after. I stepped through, by becoming an independently owned and operated HomeVesters® franchisee.  

As a HomeVestors® franchisee, I gained access to much stronger leads from distressed homeowners seeking a buyer before the bank gets involved. With the power of the nationally-recognized “We Buy Ugly Houses®” advertising campaign behind me, I am connected to qualified leads, avoid competitive bidding wars, and close deals far faster than with a drawn-out short sale. 

If you’re looking for short sale homes in Queens NY, good luck. If you’re looking to be a professional real estate investor with a solid lead generation strategy, call HomeVestors® today. 

Each franchise office is independently owned and operated.