If your home is in a short sale do you keep on paying your mortgage? What advice would you give me. Thanks.?

The ethical thing is to pay your mortgage until the home sells. The bank is doing you a favor by agreeing to short sale your property. You are doing the right thing to not let it foreclose. Now you should continue to do the right thing and pay your mortgage until you absolutly can't or you sell the home. The more people that pay their debts, the faster our economy will rebound. If your home is in a short sale do you keep on paying your mortgage? What advice would you give me. Thanks.?
A short sale is an agreement between you and the lender to salvage a potential foreclosure. Part of that agreement should be whether or not you continue to make the payments, or partial payments, etc.





In most cases, the reason you're doing a short sale is because you can't make the payments so an agreement to make partial payments or no payments is not unreasonable. If you've listed with a realtor, which is how most short sales are done, discuss this issue with your realtor. Just don't jeopardize your short sale by doing something crazy.If your home is in a short sale do you keep on paying your mortgage? What advice would you give me. Thanks.?
NO, the way to do a '; short sale '; is with the cooperation of the lender. Legally it is the only way to do it, as you have to have the lender's permission for a short sale.





You find someone who will buy your property at a reasonable reduced rate, get them financially qualified and approach the original lender about the potential of a short sale. Some lenders are doing short sales to keep properties from going into foreclosure and just having empty buildings sitting around.





It would also help the situation if you had a real estate agent who has '; experience '; in doing a short sale.





A true short sale means that the original lender agrees to take a loss in the sale......AND that you no longer owe any money on your original mortgage.





GOOD LUCK
If you have a lender who has agreed to allow a short sale where they take the contract offer price which is less than the amount owed and are willing to call it ';even'; - then they don't expect you to pay your mortgage.





When investors work with borrowers to negotiate a short sale with the bank on the borrowers' behalf, one of the standard items in the short sale package provided to the bank is a ';hardship letter';. This demonstrates things like job loss, medical bills, divorce, etc., that show a borrower's true inability to pay. If you are paying the mortgage, the bank is less likely to go for a short sale BECAUSE THEY ARE GETTING PAID.





But, if they have agreed to a short sale (IN WRITING) already and you come across some money and can pay, that will at least lower the amount of ';forgiven debt'; that you would have to pay taxes on. Meaning, if you owe 150k and the bank takes 100k as payment in full, they may report to the IRS the 50k in forgiven debt as income to you. If you pay to lower that number, you'll owe less in taxes...
Is your home really in a short sale? You are only in a short sale if someone has made a written offer to purchase your home, and they or their agent are negotiating with your lender(s) to accept less than what they're owed.





If you're in a short sale situation, chances are you have not paid your mortgage in several months--so no, you would not make payments.





But, if you're current on your mortgage--then yes, keep making your payments if you can. Because, if the short sale is not approved and the sale falls through, perhaps you will want to keep the house.