Buying a short sale-advice needed!

[Nicole Smith]

My husband and I recently decided to make an offer on a short sale property. We submitted our offer on January 11th expecting full well to have to wait awhile to get any sort of response. We were notified on the 14th that our offer was accepted by the seller and being sent to the bank. We got the ball rolling with our lender so all of our cards would be in place of we got approval from the bank. Well as a surprise to EVERYONE our offer was accepted by the bank on January 29th! We are told today that the bank set the closing to be on March 4th and unfortunately this is not enough time. We are doing a 203k Fha loan and our lender says the earliest we could close would be March 30th. Are we just out of luck? Should we back out now? And if we do will we lose the money we put up already? 

[John Clark]

the only suggestions that come to mind are as follows:

-consider the use of a hard money lender

-consider assigning your equitable interest in the purchase contract to another investor who has the cash to close for a fee. (Aka wholesaling, which some lenders and tittle companies are against. Just depends who they are)

Also if you put earnest money down and agreed with the seller in the purchase contract that is was "non-refundable" earnest money then yes you will loose that money if you "back out" of the deal. Unless there is some creative way I'm unaware of to get your earnest money back which I doubt.

There are rist associated with the suggestions above so consult with a RE attorney familiar with those scenarios in your area and do your own homework as well.

I'm no expert but hope to have pointed you in the right direction.