Much has been written across real estate blogs and mainstream media outlets about unrealistic home sellers. It seems much less common though to talk about unrealistic home buyers.

Naturally everyone wants to get the most home they can for the least amount of money. Which is, of course, in opposition to the home seller, who wants the most money for their home. This inherent conflict is one of the things that makes real estate sales… challenging at times.

It has been my experience of late that home sellers in Phoenix are becoming much more realistic. While it used to be quite common to hear sellers say things like, “But my neighbors house sold for x dollars last year!”, sellers seem to be getting more realistic when it comes to their home’s value, as depressing as that may be.

Home buyers on the other hand almost seem to be losing their grip on reality.

Here are some examples of communication we have received lately:

• We’d like to offer $30K under list price…
• I want a single-family detached house in Scottsdale, on a golf course. I can spend up to $150K…
• I need a home less than three years old, NOT in a HOA…
• We just foreclosed last month and are looking to buy. I think our credit is horrible, and we don’t have any down payment money…
• I need a smoking deal on a bank owned home or short sale. I’m willing to pay 50% of list on multiple properties…
• I refuse to pay a dime over list price on a short sale or bank owned home…

I could go on and on.

The answer for all of those comments above is “you can’t do/get/buy that”.

Here’s the deal. Much of this type of thing comes from simply not understanding what is happening in the real estate market. And by “the real estate market” I am not talking about what you hear on CNN or even your local evening news / newspaper. You need to understand what the market is doing in the specific area you are interested in. “The market” is just too broad and real estate is hyper local.

As a home buyer, you can’t be expected to truly understand your local real estate market. Most people buy a home every 7 – 10 years. We are up to our necks in this stuff every single day. That doesn’t make real estate sales people better than you, or smarter. It’s just what we do for a living (and sometimes I ask myself why in the world I’m doing it…). Helping people determine the nuances of their local real estate market is what we get paid for (and why, to be brutally honest, it is very frustrating to have our data, attempts at education, and advice questioned repeatedly – or ignored).

An example:

At this moment in time, the average price of a home in the Phoenix Multiple Listing Service is $175,509. That number is for the entire Phoenix MLS area, which includes all of Maricopa County and a significant swath of Pinal county. That is a HUGE area – almost the size of the state of Massachusetts.

Listen to the mainstream media and you’ll often hear the average priced batted about – it’s rising, it’s falling, it’s hopeless, it’s recovering.

So what does an average home price in the Phoenix area of $175K mean?

Absolutely nothing.

You want a home in Phoenix proper? Average price is $132K

Scottsdale? Average price is $639K

Gilbert? Average price is $221K

El Mirage? Average price is $79K

You see, when you lump every type of home in a 10,000 square mile area into one number, it swiftly begins to become meaningless.

So let’s drill down a little bit. . .

$639K average home price in Scottsdale? What does that mean?

Only slightly more than absolutely nothing.

Right now I could sell you a condo in Scottsdale for $32,000 (but it’s not on a golf course). Or a (really) nice home for $15,000,000. About all the average price tells you is that generally, homes in Scottsdale cost more than say… homes in Gilbert, which are more, generally, than homes in El Mirage.

Here is where being a “realistic buyer” comes in to play

It is a waste of your time and your agent’s time to try to find homes that simply do not exist. That part is relatively easy to educate, and provide hard data to back up that education. Want a golf-course lot single-family home in Scottsdale? A quick trip to the MLS shows you have 323 options, and the five lowest priced ones are: $295K; $350K; $394K; $410K; and $424K. You simply can’t get one for $150K — it does not exist. Don’t waste your, mine and our time looking for one.

You want to “steal” a bank-owned home for 50% of list price? Consider this… In Feb 2010, there were 2,822 lender owned properties sold, at an average of 98.48% of list price. How many do you think were sold at 50% of list price? While I have not looked at all 2,822 sales, I’m quite confident in saying that number is zero. You can’t buy REO properties in Phoenix at 50% off list price. That’s not a realistic expectation.

That’s all hard data – you can’t argue with it (though many do).

Were it gets tough is on some of the more nebulous requests from buyers. You don’t want to offer a dime over list price on a short sale? Well, here is where you may have to rely on your agent’s expertise. I can tell you (and show you) that there are oodles of short sale listings in the Phoenix market priced woefully under market value. We could spend hours pouring over current listings and past sales to demonstrate this. But that’s not an effective use of your time (or mine). And it is still a difficult thing to prove. The problem is, there are listing agents out there with the nasty habit of grossly under pricing a short sale in an effort to generate an offer and/or bidding frenzy. Offer below list price on a home already priced lower than the bank will accept and you are looking at an exercise in futility.

When you are buying a home, you have to be realistic. You aren’t going to get everything a $500K home has to offer for $250K – it just doesn’t work that way. You’re not going to steal a home from a bank, no matter how much the banks annoy you or how much they got in bailout money. You aren’t going to live a Scottsdale lifestyle on an El Mirage budget.

Please please please, for the love of all things good and the little fluffy bunnies, don’t think for a moment that I’m saying all buyers are unrealistic, or that no one listens. Buyers are smart. Smarter than a lot of people, including many listing agents and sellers, give them credit for. Yes, it is frustrating when a buyer won’t listen, or doesn’t believe what we say. Given the general mistrust of real estate agents in the public’s eye, I understand that reluctance to believe. I understand we have to prove we know what we’re talking about. We have to earn your trust. Once that trust is earned however; take advantage of it! Believe what your agent is telling you. I can assure you that they want to sell you a home as badly as you want to buy one.

Think about what your expectations are, and work with your agent to see if they are realistic. It’s OK to ask for as much proof as your agent can provide. Realize though that some things are difficult to prove with hard factual / statistical data. Sometimes empirical data (based on observation and experience) is all you have to work with. Combine the two, work closely with your agent, build that trust and get out there and find that perfect home! 

Just be realistic. It will greatly reduce your stress level. And your agents. Remember, real estate agents are people too. (At least most are most of the time…)

Are you a Phoenix homeowner facing foreclosure or a short sale? Maybe you are looking at an increase in your adjustable rate mortgage?

The Arizona State Escrow Association in conjunction with the Better Business Bureau, Arizona Department of Financial Institutions and the Arizona Mortgage Lenders’ Association is hosting a community assistance event that may have some of the help you need.

You can meet with a counselor from Take Charge America (a non-profit credit counseling organization), participate in mini-sessions on things like adjustable rate loans, foreclosure/homeowner eviction, short sales, scams, tax implications and second mortgages/credit impact.

This event is free, no RSVP is required.

Lots of folks are in trouble out there. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. There ARE things that can help. Go, talk to some people. It is OK to ask for help!

What: Homeowner’s Survival Event

When: Saturday March 20, 2010 from 10:00am – 4:00pm

Where: Steele Indian School Park / Memorial Hall at 300 East Indian School Road, Phoenix, AZ 85012. (map)

Cost: Zero. 0. Free.

For credit counseling: you are encouraged to bring copies of you current loan documents, e.g., Note, Truth-in-Lending Statement, etc. if they are available.

PDF flyer

Photo Credit: stephmcg on Flickr. CC License.

Longtime readers of Phoenix Real Estate Guy will know there are some things that annoy me about the real estate industry. No, seriously!

Bad listing photos, (most) Realtor designations, the bureaucracy of Realtor Associations, the requirement to write REALTOR® in ALL CAPS, single-agent dual agency, and the “I’M A MILLION DOLLAR PRODUCER!” proclamation are just a few annoyances on my list.

Here’s another thing that bugs the hell out of me.

Claims of “We are #1!” for anything ranging from production, to agent count, to service, to web sites, to social media presence. And more.

A couple of years ago, some agent regularly slapped fliers on my door with “THE NUMBER ONE REAL ESTATE WEB SITE IN ARIZONA!!” in big giant red letters across the top. Interestingly, that #1 real estate website in Arizona is now returning “page not found” errors…

I regularly see agents advertising, “I’m a top producer!”

And a few days ago, @KWCareers on Twitter posted this:

For the record, I’ve got nothing against Keller Williams. I have good friends that are KW agents, I know many stellar KW agents,  and we’ve got some amazing former KW agents working at Thompson’s Realty.

What bugs me are these claims – by anyone – of being #1, or “the best” or “top” whatever.

When I see claims like the one Keller Williams made, four thoughts typically pop immediately into my head:

1. You are #1 based on what metrics?
2. Show me the data!
3. Who cares?
4. So what?

So in an effort to get the answer to Thought 1, I asked @KWCareers this on Twitter:

“Curious, #1 based on what metric?”

I was not alone in my curiosity, as Michael McClure ( @ProfessionalOne) asked:

“Congrats! By what metric(s) are U #1 on Twitter?”

The next day, here’s how the Twitter conversation progressed:

Well, given that on Twitter @KWCareers has 4,398 followers, and @KWRI (the KW “home” account) has 6,374 followers, yeah it is that hard to believe. Total number of followers? The aforementioned ProfessionalOne has 34,239 followers. Adding these two KW accounts together they don’t have one-third the followers that Professional One has…

So I replied:

Which garnered this response:

Ah! Now we are finally getting to the root of the question, “You are #1 based on what metric?”

Let’s set aside the ridiculous (and worthless) measure of “followers” on Twitter – it means absolutely nothing as Jeff Turner pointed out quite eloquently in his article, YEO – Why Twitter Follower Counts Mean Nothing. If you think follower counts mean anything, read Jeff’s article where he outlines how he set up two Twitter accounts for fictional people, automated their Twitter messages and replies, and collected almost 6,000 followers in one week.

But if Keller Williams wants to use that particular metric to claim they are, “The #1 real estate company on Twitter and Facebook”, who am I to stop them?

However, if you’re going to claim it, you darn well ought to be able to prove it.

My Thought 2 asks, “Show me the data!”

And we are waiting on said data:

This should be quite interesting. In order to prove this claim, what KW is going to have to do is:

Show that they’ve found every Keller Williams agent with a Twitter and Facebook account, and every agent with a Twitter and Facebook account that works for RE/MAX, Century 21, Coldwell-Banker, and Prudential. Since those are the largest five brokerages by agent count, that should be a sufficient sample set to prove they have the most agents with Twitter accounts and Facebook profiles. (Though to truly prove their claim, they really need the numbers for every agent in every company.)

Good luck getting that data. I can’t wait to see it. I wonder who #2 is? Keller Williams must already know as they have determined they are #1. You can’t claim you are #1 without knowing who is in position #2…

I don’t think they can prove this. Oh, they can assume they are #1 because they are the largest brokerage by agent count. They do tend to have more “tech savvy” agents than the other large brokerage houses, so maybe this assumption of the “#1 spot” is safe.

But they aren’t saying, “We think we are #1” or “We assume we are #1” or “We’re probably #1”. They said, “KW is the #1 real estate company on Twitter and Facebook”. Is, not might, should or could be. Is.

So prove it.

Here’s where things like this bug me beyond belief

No one ever bothers to prove these wild (and usually meaningless) claims. They just shout them out and expect people to believe it.

Here’s a claim for you:

Thompson’s Realty is the number one real estate brokerage in the world!

Want proof?

We have never had a single agent leave our brokerage to go work for another real estate brokerage. Ever. That is a documentable fact. Since no one has ever left to work somewhere else, we are by definition #1 with regard to agent retention (Yes, there could be other brokerages with the same claim – but no one can do better than zero agents leaving for other brokerages).

Maybe I should blaze Thompson’s Realty is the number one real estate brokerage in the world! across my websites. Or send out a Tweet or Facebook status update. It is a true statement after all.

A true statement as long as I leave out how we are measuring this. Of course there is more that should go into claiming you are the #1 brokerage in the world than just agent retention. But hey, everyone else makes #1 claims without bothering to mention what metric that claim is based on. Why shouldn’t I?

Why. Shouldn’t. I.

Because it is wrong to make claims of position or grandeur without the data to back it up. Because It’s wrong to puff out your chest with pride and say things like you have “the best website in Arizona”, or you run “the #1 brokerage in the world” or “the #1 real estate company on Twitter and Facebook” without clearly indentifying what you are basing that claim on – and having the data to back it up.

Not only is it wrong, but honestly, who cares and so what? Does being the #1 real estate company on Twitter mean a damn thing to the most important people for your brokerage — your clients? Last I checked, our sellers have one fundamental goal – to sell their home. Our buyers have one fundamental goal – to purchase a home that meets their needs. I don’t think they give a hoot how many Twitter followers our agents have, how many have a Facebook page, how many RSS subscribers or how many visitors their sites get. Yes, maybe those things contribute to the success of an agent, and ultimately to the clients need. Maybe. But prancing around making basically unprovable claims is a pointless exercise.

So please, make it stop.

UPDATE:

Seems prudent to document the conversation that occurred on Twitter after this post was published:

@KWCareers: Just got a message from KWRI that they did their own survey of other RE Co’s on Twitter/Facebk & compared follower/fan #’s to KW’s

@KWCareers: @ProfessionalOne @phxreguy Wish I had an independent source to refer to….but had to take our research dept’s findings as fact

@PhxREGuy: @KWCareers Soooo… you can’t share the research dept’s findings? They must have had SOMETHING to base this claim on?

@KWCareers: @phxreguy Working on getting the specific data…stay tuned. Believe me….want to win this debate! Thanks for participating!

@PhxREGuy: @KWCareers Would be interesting to see. Assuming a sample, so things like sample size, statistical validity, margin of error are important

@PhxREGuy: @KWCareers WIthout at least that, it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on… especially w/o independent verification

@KWCareers: @phxreguy Understand…will work to get u info. In the meantime, maybe u should take a closer look at the KW model: http://bit.ly/cjJcOk [Editor's Note: thanks for the link, but I'm well aware of the KW model]

Approximately two hours later…

@KWCareers: @phxreguy The stat that KW is # 1 on facebook/twitter is based off the followers/fans of each company’s corporate identities on each site.

@PhxREGuy: @KWCareers So you are saying KW is #1 on Twitter because @kwri has more followers than any other RE company?

And no response yet from my last question to @KWCareers, though they’ve sent out nine unrelated Tweets since telling us they are “#1 on Twitter” based off followers of “each companies corporate identities”.

MY interpretation of that means that the “Keller Williams Research Department” looked up Twitter profiles for the main “corporate identity” account for…  every real estate company?

Hmmm. Apparently not. Here’s what the Thompson’s Realty Research Department has found regarding Twitter follower count for various real estate companies:

Kelsey Cottrell Realty (Independent real estate brokerage): 99,569 followers
Professional One (Real Estate Brokerage Franchisor): 34,261 followers
Austin Texas Homes (Independent real estate brokerage): 11,286 followers
Susie Blackmon LLC (Independent real estate brokerage): 10,337 followers
Buyers Choice Realty (Independent real estate brokerage): 7,267 followers
Keller Williams Realty: 6,470 followers
Thompson’s Realty (Independent real estate brokerage): 6,242 followers (dammit, I need another 228 followers to surpass KW as NUMBER ONE! Oh, wait…)
RE/MAX International: 6,077 followers
Century 21: 5,875 followers
Coldwell Banker: 4,261 followers

Please note this list is by no means comprehensive. The five real estate companies that, ahem, place higher than Keller Williams in follower count were found in, oh… call it 30 seconds, by the crack research department here at Thompson’s Realty.

I did have one local Phoenix area KW agent ask me on Twitter, “Aren’t there bigger causes/more productive things you could question or try to solve?”

My response was, “Personally, I think a major RE brand making an apparently baseless claim IS a big deal. Your mileage may vary.”

This post didn’t start out as a rant against Keller Williams. Sorry if I ruffled some KW agents feathers, that wasn’t the intent. The intent was to point out the lunacy of proclaiming yourself “#1″ when you’ve got nothing, or faulty “research”, to back up that claim.

UPDATE March 17, 2010: Keller Williams just issued a clarification on their “We are the #1 real estate company on Twitter and Facebook” statement. It’s posted on their Facebook fan page. In short, they are now saying they are #1 of the four major real estate franchise brokerages (which I assume are KW, RE/MAX, Century 21 and… Coldwell Banker? Prudential?).

Fighting fraud has become a big part of the job for escrow and title professionals. We are not only protecting our company, but we are protecting lenders, buyers and sellers as well. The bad guys are very creative, as detailed in the following story

An order was opened with a title company and the person purporting to be the mortgage broker asked about the possibility of closing the loan herself while still having the title company perform the title work. A few days later, someone claiming to be from the mortgage company came by the title company’s office and asked if she could have some pens and pads. After a title company employee gave her the requested supplies, the mortgage broker also asked to use their closing room the next day to perform a document signing on the transaction they recently opened. The escrow officer told her she could not prepare the documents yet, as there were judgments and liens that still needed to be addressed.

The buyer called, indicating a closer from the title company had come by her office and had her sign all the documents, then left with her cashier’s check made out to the title company. She indicated the settlement statement showed a refund was due to the buyer and wanted to know where her refund was.

The title company’s manager asked for the issuing bank information from the buyer. After the title agent alerted the bank’s fraud department, the bank said the cashier’s check was deposited in a bank account under the title company’s name. The account had been opened just a few days prior – with what turned out to be a phony opening deposit!

With today’s technology, it’s simple to create official looking documents in order to commit a fraudulent act. The example above is just one of many…

Many lenders today require that the escrow company conduct the signing in their office or by their own employees to prevent the above scenario. Many escrow and title companies have employees that will conduct mobile signings or have business relationships with national mobile notary companies (with the necessary safeguards, including adequate E&O insurance) to combat fraud. Gone are the days of picking up a deed or loan package and getting them signed on your own. As with most things in life, the actions of a few can create additional hurdles for the rest…

So next time your escrow officer insists you or your client come into the office to sign, you’ll understand why the request is being made.

About the Author: Bill Risser is an Assistant Vice President and Branch Manager of the Chicago Title – Gilbert office.   You can find him at CT-Gilbert.com and on Twitter at @billrisser, that is, when he’s not on a local golf course with his son, at the movies with his wife,  or tending to one of his four fantasy leagues (NFL, MLB, PGA, and NASCAR).

Sometimes answering the phone is a predictable sport.

When home values drop 50% and the economy is shedding jobs like I wish I could burn calories writing posts (lots and fast), it seems that every call I get is so… predictable.

Hello, can you just answer one simple question for me? Do I have to be late on my payments in order to get help from my bank?

I have been asked this question no less than about 200 times in the last 2 years.

And usually after someone asks me the question, it is followed by fairly lengthy explanation of how they have never been late on their mortgage payment, have never been late on anything – and currently have a 700 (or higher) credit score.

In short, the callers are stressed out.

Photo Credit

As with many of the larger decisions in life, often times the stress of knowing you are going to have to make a decision is worse than the actual decision making itself.

Another thing that many people won’t tell you when you are short-selling your house is that once you make the decision to actually do it, your stress level will go down.

Or at least mine did.

And many other people that I have talked to have said the same thing.

Once you actually make a decision as to what the best choice is for your particular situation, your stress level will decrease.

Generally speaking.

So if you happen to be one of those people with a perfect credit score who finds that you are staying up late worrying about whether or not the time has come to short-sell your house, I have good news for you:

Once you make the decision – whatever it is – your stress level will decrease.

*sigh*

Long time readers already know one of my pet peeves is poor photos of homes for sale in the Multiple Listing Service.

Dean Ouellette uncovered this little nugget today:

Yes, that is the actual size of the photo uploaded into the MLS.

Nothing like displaying your client’s property in a stunning 65 x 42 pixel masterpiece.

I don’t even know how to take a picture this small…

The MLS resizes one photo to display as a “primary” photo with the listing information, so here’s what you get when it does its resizing:

Well that’s better.

In case you were wondering, here’s what the kitchen looks like:

And there is this lovely shot of the parking space:

Just for comparative purposes, here’s a kitchen  shot from one of our current listings. Of note, I had to reduce the size of this MLS photo to get it to display properly here:

In addition to photos, agents and potential buyers like to see a description of the home. The MLS provides space for this as well. ANNOYINGLY, MANY AGENTS WRITE THESE DESCRIPTIONS IN ALL CAPS. But even that is better then the description that accompanied these teeny-tiny photos. It read:

Remarks:

Yep. Completely blank.

Home Sellers – Please, please check the photos your agent submits to the MLS. Photos are one of the main factors in home buyers deciding to take a look at your property. If they can’t see it in pictures, they won’t bother seeing it in real life. A description, any description, helps too.

I’ve been toying with the thought of using “branded” short URLs for awhile now.

What’s a short URL, and why use one?

Short URLs take lengthy web page addresses like:

http://www.phoenixrealestateguy.com/the-seller-didnt-submit-my-offer-to-the-bank-on-a-short-sale/

and “convert” them to something significantly shorter. This is quite useful in applications that limit the number of characters you can use, such as Twitter and text messages.

There are several services that shorten URLs – bit.ly, tinyurl, and many others. And they work just fine.

But I wanted a short URL that “brands” Phoenix Real Estate Guy. I’ve had the domain name TPREG.com (The Phoenix Real Estate Guy) for awhile and never done much with it. Since it’s only 5 characters, it lends itself well to a branded short URL. All I needed was a relatively painless way to create short URLs.

Google, naturally, has an application to do just this.

You’ll need a Google Apps domain, and the ability to change MX and add CNAME records to that domain. It’s not as complicated as it may sound, Google will step you through it. However, unless you’re comfortable with changing these things and understand roughly what they are doing I highly suggest trying this first on a test domain, not your primary one. Changing MX records can really jack up existing email. Most of you won’t have email going to a short URL anyway, but better to be prudent than blow up your email account.

Cost for setting this up is zero.

The Google solution is pretty slick. It tracks clicks on shortened links (VERY useful) and has an API for those more technically adept than me.

An example of the branded short URL for this post is:

http://new.tpreg.com/001

Which is significantly shorter than:

http://www.phoenixrealestateguy.com/customized-short-urls-brand-your-links-on-twitter-sms-facebook-etc

Is creating a branded short URL worthwhile? I dunno. But it only took about 10 minutes, so I figured it can’t hurt. You’ll see them popping up on my Twitter page, and anywhere else that long URLs are a pain.

Hat tip to Dustin Luther for finally motivating me to get this done.

This just in from Ask the Broker:

Question: I put in an offer on a home that is in short sale, but the owner refused to submit my offer to the bank which was the highest offer given. He wants to remain in the home, with investor purchase. My agent told him we submitted an offer and it was still active, so the sellers agent removed from market. House goes in foreclosure 3/9/10/ What can I do to advise bank of my offer that the seller is withholding?

The short answer: there isn’t anything you can do.

The owner is not under any obligation what-so-ever to submit ANY offer to the lender. It doesn’t matter that your offer was the highest offer, it doesn’t matter if he wants to stay in the home. It’s his home, and he controls what offer does and does not go to the bank.

A short sale is really no different than a traditional sale in this matter. No one who puts their home on the market is obligated to consider any offer. In the case of a short sale, yes the lender has to approve an offer, but it is still the seller’s home, and they are in complete control over which offer – if any – is sent on to the lender.

It sounds here like the seller is hoping an investor will purchase his home and lease it back to him. As such, they are only going to submit offers from investors. It is well within their rights to do exactly that.

As an aside, while I don’t think this applies in this particular situation, buyers submitting offers on homes for sale need to remember that price isn’t the only factor sellers consider. See Making an Offer on a Home. It’s not all about the Benjamin’s… for some thoughts on factors that go into a seller’s decision to accept an offer.

Photo Credit: Valerie Everett on Flickr

Two years ago today, Francy and I opened Thompson’s Realty.

The original plan was for the brokerage to consist of Francy, one friend of ours, and me.

That plan failed miserably.

Today we have 19 agents, cover residential sales and property management and have offices in both Phoenix and Tucson.

Personally – and yes, I am biased – I think we have the best agents in the business. They are all bright, innovative, and work their tails off. Most importantly, all of our agents live and breath customer service. Without them, this brokerage simply could not exist. I thank them all from the bottom of my heart.

And a huge thanks to all of our clients who have trusted Thompson’s Realty to represent them. You don’t know how much we appreciate you.

We’re only two years old, and we have a long way to go before we grow up. But it’s been a fun ride so far and I’m certain the best is yet to come.

I’m really not any different than you are.

Even though I play a mortgage commentator on Twitter, it doesn’t mean that I am infected with mortgage rabies not a real person.

I like to think that if there ever was a focus group for everyday-Americans, I might even get an invite.

I am just normal.

And so I am going to let many of you other normal people in on a little secret — because according to my escrow agent,  you might be dealing with the same problem I have been dealing with:

Short selling your house.

Whether it makes sense or not, regardless of what reasons you may have for  short selling your house, I just thought I would let you in on one little secret that no one will really tell you about…

Short selling your house will put an abnormally large amount of stress on your marriage.

Just ask my wife.

Having met her when I was 11 and having been married for 16 or so years now – I can safely say that short selling our house was one of the more stress-inducing events we have been through.

And the strange thing is – no one warned us that she would want to kill me for about 10 months straight for being the one dumb enough to get us into the position where short selling our house seemed like a sane choice.

There are many reasons that short selling your house can harm your personal relationships – and not one of the relationship gurus wrote a word about how to deal with the process in all of the relationship books I have read over the last 12 months.

But chances are, at some point in the process – the ambiguity of it all will become beyond annoying and get at least one of you to the point of apathy.

And I once learned somewhere that there is only one feeling worse than hate: apathy.

So no matter what, if you find yourself in a position where you are selling your home for less than you owe your lender on it…

Make sure you know in advance that it will put an undue amount of stress on your marriage.

And now you can’t say that someone didn’t warn you about that part.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cdgleason/3471590779/