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People seeking employment fill out application forms at a job fair in San Francisco on Nov. 9, 2011. Many job applications ask whether you've been through a foreclosure, but they ignore short sales. (Robert Galbraith/Reuters)
2. How do short sales compare to foreclosures?
A foreclosure can be extremely damaging to an individual’s credit report and it can have long-term effects on anyone seeking credit. So, for several years after foreclosure, former homeowners can find themselves denied credit – or paying much higher rates to finance a car and other large items. A borrower would also have to answer yes on an employment application if she ever had a foreclosure. She could be denied employment.
And forget about taking out a mortgage to buy a home. In most cases, a lender won’t even consider you until five to seven years have passed, although lending guidelines are changing every day. A negative credit report can even make it more difficult to rent an apartment.
Short sales, by contrast, do far less damage to your credit report. Also, if a borrower has a home equity line of credit attached to their property, the rights to collect on that do not cease to exist. They will remain open and sought. If borrowers reside in a recourse state (most Americans do), the lender also has a legal right to seek recourse against them. Foreclosure will sink a credit rating nearly as much as bankruptcy does.
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