Frustrating Short Sale process for everyone involved.

[Jafar Seife]

It is well understood generally short sales are time consuming and take longer than regular real estate transactions. We have been in contract for this property since December. It is a bankruptcy situation and the bankruptcy has been approved. We provided and signed all the required documents including arms length agreement and understanding short sale process. Recently we were told the short sale is in process of approval and awaiting Broker's Price Opinion (BPO) and to give it two more weeks. Just when we thought we are getting somewhere, we were told there are some documents that are still missing and the arms length was not signed by the listing agent and that our contract expired. Excuses of missing document seems to be a common theme here. We were hoping we would close on this property before the end of summer just in time for the new school year. Now we signed everything again and told the process will start all over again from the scratch not from where it stopped. The listing agent keeps telling us he is as frustrated as we are and he does not know what to do. As a last resort I reached out to the original lender which tells me the property is not owned by the bank and it is an FHA loan which will eventually end up as a HUD property and be listed under HUD. The bank's point of contact declines to answer any further questions pertaining to this property citing privacy concerns. Are we chasing a dream here? Is there any hope this property can be sold to us before being handed back to HUD? How can we possibly expedite this process? Any suggestions and advices will be appreciated.

[John Teachout]

From what I've heard over the years, your short sale is moving along at about the average pace. We avoid them for that reason. Too challenging to play a game when they keep changing the rules. I'm sure some go smoothly and in a concise time frame, just haven't heard of anyone having that experience. Sorry for the frustration everyone is experiencing in this. Many of our purchases have been REO and they have their glitches too but not to that extreme.