Real Estate - Can we talk short-sales?

[forgop]

Never pursued a short sale, but after talking with my agent after buying a house a year ago, the only thing it sounds like you can have when attempting to buy a short sale is a lot of time. If you are under any sort of time constraint that you need to operate under, forget it. Sounds like a short sale is more like a long sale in that it can take months upon months to actually get one to go through.

[jmsremax]

Also, don't let a pushy seller's agent rush you into anything. The few times this scenario played out with the buyers I was representing it turned out they were trying to prevent a home inspector from finding any issues with the property. The worst was this one house that seemed like a winner until the home inspector noticed the house wasn't tied into the street sewerage and water lines. The estimated cost to get the home tied in was about $70,000ish because they would have to dig up the street, break apart the foundation, pay for the pipes, and pay the town a fee to install.

[wayner123]

Originally Posted by forgop

Never pursued a short sale, but after talking with my agent after buying a house a year ago, the only thing it sounds like you can have when attempting to buy a short sale is a lot of time. If you are under any sort of time constraint that you need to operate under, forget it. Sounds like a short sale is more like a long sale in that it can take months upon months to actually get one to go through.

That is not the case in every short sale, but 99% of them are that way. We were blessed enough to have gotten a short sale that a previous buyer had put a bid in on 6 months earlier. The people who put the bid in, found another house in the meantime. But most of the short sale work had been done. As it should be. These agents listing houses as shorts sales, without an offer from the bank piss me off. In those cases, your offer is what gets that 6-12 month ball rolling.