Need help evaluating this Short Sale lead.

[Michael Lerch]

Never done a short sale before. I mostly do wholesaling. The owner owes $174k (and about 7k behind in payments). Bank says they'll work with him and have tried several times to renegotiate his mortgage but he just wants out. He says the bank would be willing to do a short sale, and his neighbor down the street in a similar house and debt said he did a short sale of his house for $140k and believes he can get the same deal, and offered it to me.

The house is in a VERY nice neighborhood and the town is where all the high income families live. The market is pretty hot for that area, and I suspect that I wouldn't have any trouble flipping it come spring/summer. Could use some paint and carpet, but otherwise the house has all high end stuff.

Never used a hard money lender before and I don't have a lot of skin to put in the game.

Thoughts?