NAR Approves New Model Rules For MLS About "Short Sales"

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) board of directors has recently adopted new policy for disclosure of short sale listings in a multiple listing service.

The NAR directors “approved new model rules for Multiple Listing Services (MLSs) that would enable practitioners to alert one another to potential short sales and put them on notice about the sharing of any reduction in gross listing commission required by a lender. MLSs are given the authority to decide whether or not their participants have to disclose reasonablyknown short sales."

All MLSs must provide their members with the means to disclose that a given listing is a short sale.

For purposes of the new rule, short sales are defined as “a transaction where title transfers; where the sale price is insufficient to pay the total of all liens and costs of sale; and where the seller does not bring sufficient liquid assets to the closing to cure all deciencies.”

Agents for buyers in short sales must advise the buyer clients that a proposed short sale price accepted by the seller might not be approved by the lender. Buyers should be careful and not get too excited about a possible bargain at short sale.

It's not the easy road for a real buyer.

Posted by Harrison K. Long, Explore Properties Group, June 5, 2008
Source: Bob Hunt.