Short Sales With No SPDS or CLUE Reports Are Wrong.

I had an interesting call from a person in the process of buying a home.  He called me after reading an older blog post of ours on the same subject over at Phoenix Market Trends.  They are looking for an agent that sees it like them when it comes to sellers providing an SPDS and CLUE report.  An SPDS is a seller property disclosure statement and a clue report is an insurance claims history.  

The clue report is no bid deal since anyone can get it for free or for about $20.00, but, none the less, what is the problem for the seller to provided it per the contract. 

If one is dealing with a lender owned property then it's fair to not expect these documents, but there is absolutely no reason in other cases not to have those provided: short sale, fix and flip included.  

The caller was frustrated because his current agent told him that if he wants those documents then he should forget buying a short sale.  

That is not true either.  Plenty of sellers play by the rules of common decency and provide those document.  When we take a listing, even short sale listing, these are required and we will not take the listing if the seller does not provide these.

It is simply a matter of carelessness toward the other party and laziness that dictates the decision to withhold these.  I truly cannot think of another reason.

Now the reality is that if you do require these documents and you, as a buyer, won't look at properties that don't provide these then you will have a much lower choice of home.  Just because they are not providing the document does not mean the home is bad.  You have to balance the risk of not getting them vs. not getting a home you want.

We can do as much as possible to obtain them and try to convince the seller and seller's agent to make an effort, but there are enough buyers out there that if you don't buy then someone else will.

I don't agree with not providing the documents, but it's kind of the lay of the land at this time and it's something we have to work with.  

This market has brought out a lot of vices in people.  It seems that, for some reason, many sellers don't realize they will be in the same position in the future and that really we are in this all together: no matter how big the city is it's still all our city, our culture.