short sale People who are just coming into the market to look for a home to buy might be confused about what a short sale is. The terminology suggests that the home won't take long to sell, but that is far from the truth. It really means that the home is being sold for less than the amount owned on the mortgage, hence the owners and the lender are selling short.

A short sale is a great way to buy a home, especially to get a home that is in reasonably good shape and often newer than some of the other homes on the market. Builders put a lot of families in homes with financing programs that the owners ultimately could not afford, so many of those owners had to either walk or put their homes up as a short sale when they saw the writing on the wall. Sometimes newer homes are better investments than older homes because they are more stylish and everything is newer. There may still be fix-up issues with the home, but people who want lots of light and volume in their homes should ask their Realtor to find a newer home being sold as a short sale with these characteristics.