• The most important thing you can do to achieve success is to higher a law firm that specializes in this type of litigation. There are a number of these throughout Miami. You want to be sure to ask the attorney how many short sales they have under their belt, and how many they have in process. Only work with an attorney that is currently working with multiple clients.

• the most important thing to know is how far along has the sellers file progressed with the bank. Ask the seller if “the bank has completed the appraisal or BPO.” If the answer is yes, there is a good chance you acquire the property. If the answer is no, the odds are far less.

As we fall deeper and deeper behind financially as a country, many homeowners are starting to feel the crunch. Most of the ‘pre-construction flipper’s’ that have closed on their property in 2005 are now starting to default on their loans and foreclose. There is a difference between a short sale and a foreclosed or REO property.

In short, a ‘REO property’ is a bank owned property in which they now are the title holder. Typically, it takes anywhere from 5 months to 12 months for a bank to repossess a property.

This can be very costly to the bank and can cost them thousands. Once this is complete the property is moved by the bank into a category called Real Estate Owned (REO), and in turn they place the unit for sale with local RE brokers, or sometimes liquidate or auction the property on their own.

The two first Miami downtown high rises to be completed during the hay day of the preconstruction boom was Blue Condo in the nearby Miami design district, and One Miami in the heart of downtown. For the latter part of 2007 and the first six months of 2008 we saw many, many ’short sales’ in both of these properties. There were only a handful of REO properties available.However, today we are seeing on the Southeast Florida MLS more and more of the REO properties are available both at Blue and One Miami.Please note that much of the now troubled condo’s are located in the downtown and Brickell area of Miami. In this area we have seen most of the delivered new development such as Ten Museum Park, Marina Blue, 900 Biscayne, 50 Biscayne and many other struggle to have consistent sales in 2008.Because Blue and One Miami were delivered earlier and most people ‘closed’ on their condo we are now seeing some seller’s foreclose that were unsuccessful in short selling their property. Blue Condo and One Miami both offer great amenities and are new construction buildings.