Betsie Melter's Real Estate Blog

This was the recent question I received about timeline on a short sale. I wanted to laugh, but of course I wouldn't do that to someone. Short sales take time. Some can be done quickly. I have an excellent short sale negotiator that I hire when I do short sale listings and he has managed to get all of my listings accepted within a month ( and that is extremely quick)! But I do know that some banks are so backed up that it can take 4-6 months. I even heard of a horrible situation where one person had waited 1 year and the bank still hadn't approved one of the offers he had on the house.

All I can say is that you have to be patient when dealing with a short sale. It is so frustrating but that is the way they are operating right now. Buyers can always suggest to the listing agent thay they hire a short sale specialist to try and speed the process up, but other than that, it is a waiting game.

I have heard that some banks have started hiring more employees to deal with the short sale transactions, so that should speed up some of the waiting time. We will see what 2010 holds in store for short sales. One thing is certain, they will be around for a few more years, so buyers need to educate themselves or ask their Realtors to educate them on the process.