Upstate NY is a declining area and have been for a very long time.Personally, i prefer multi family properties (four units or more) and i hate doing major rehab.

Is your market declining,stable,or appreciating every month and by what percent?

If you have completed any amount of short sales you do upfront work first to not waste time.Never take what a seller says at face value.They will tell you anything to try and get help to solve a problem but the issue is they don't know they are hurting instead of helping.The problem with sellers is at first they are motivated to do a short sale.Then as time goes on and credit is ruined and they have moved out they become emotionally detached from the property.The buyer have unrealistic time lines to close for a short sale.You need to know if your market is declining,flat,or appreciating every month.If it's appreciating or flat the benefit is to the buyer.If it is declining the benefit is to the bank because by the time it close it might have lost 5 to 10 percent of value from the contract price.Your bank actually moved pretty quick with the short sale compared to some others.A buyer and a seller need to understand it could take 3 to 6 months or longer to do a short sale.A friend of mine that is another broker in Florida has completed over 800 short sales.He is a master at them.I did residential for a few years but then moved to commercial so I haven't kept up with all the regulatory junk on the residential side.He does all residential and does not take the short sale unless the seller agrees to certain conditions from the beginning.

I guess if they leave blank spots on an application I can decline them for incomplete application if I didn't like them.

Fitch also "projects a 10% national decline in home prices and for unemployment to decrease to 8.2% over the next two years."

So I declined them.

I declined, and really didnt wat to go over 40-45k thats is pushing it.. to make any kind of equity when finished in this market..

If you have two years tax returns available its the most recent year divided by 12 if the most recent year is shows declining income from prior year or 24 month average if most recent year is better than prior year.

Mark, I too think prices of many day-to-day items are only going to increase as the value of the dollar declines.

The agent has zero info on the building and the exsisting tenants have declined showings.