A well-researched short sale wiki can be a good starting place to learn the basics about pre-foreclosure home sales. Different wikis are aimed at different audiences. For example, some cater to investors who want to buy and flip homes. Others are targeted at the average homeowner. If you are a real estate specialist, you may find it helpful to have a list of wiki links on hand that you can use to educate buyers and sellers about the short sale process. People will read a wiki when they won’t wade through a whole Wikipedia entry.

Unfortunately, many of the wikis on this topic are outdated, incomplete, or inaccurate. Here are a couple of the better wiki entries from around the web that you could find useful:

The Motley Fool

This wiki offers a broad overview including a compressed history of how the short sale trend got its start and basic rules about HAFA. There are also a couple of tidbits that could be beneficial for homeowners. For example, it points out that homeowners don’t get to keep a real estate specialist commission if they try to handle the transaction themselves. So, there’s no upside to forgoing the services of an experienced realtor.

Don’t Starve

This wiki is a primer designed to educate homeowners on the upside of short selling their home rather than letting it go into foreclosure. It stresses that time is of the essence. Waiting until the foreclosure process is well underway may mean it is too late to get through the approval process for a short sale (since not all types of short sales automatically halt the foreclosure process).

Wikis Only Tell Part of the Story

Here at Short Sale Specialist, we provide in-depth information on every aspect of this type of real estate transaction. This is the blog to follow if you want to keep up with the latest news about:

· Changes in short sale rules or regulations on a state or federal level

· Scams and other shady business practices to watch out for

· Regional real estate market trends that could affect the availability and pricing of pre-foreclosure homes

· Details about how to work with different banks/lenders

· The latest strategies for successfully completing a short sale as a buyer, seller or specialist

· Tips for how to source short sale leads

Thanks for being a loyal reader!