And there's no shortage of them posted around my community.

There's no shortage of good deals these days.They probably realized they needed a short sale when they looked at the net proceeds of your offer compared to the amount they owe.The process you describe is normal, other than hiring someone to put together the package.

If there truly isn't enough cash in the estate and from the sale of assets then the lenders will be stuck with the shortage.

If you look at their nano bot project and Ray Kurzweil's predictions, you will see that we are roughly 10 years away from curing cancer/old age with nano bots.Overall, I believe that the boomers are already causing a shortage of supply which is already a large driver in the market.

Quotes are not that far off - prices are up and people are very busy - labor shortage in our market and this isn't a big enough job to get great pricing.

If there is a shortage of on street parking, then off street parking becomes more valuable.

Hopefully they will work out in our favor, because that will end up truly helping the housing shortage and give us more options for infill and development. 

There seems to be no shortage of great deals out there.

The only problem is,they may have stocked good board for the ceiling, and the bad board for the walls.Back when the drywall shortage happened here in tampa bay area, they were pulling board from where ever they could get it,you had to put your order in 6 to 9 weeks in advance( basically when you planted your permit box, you ordered your sheet rock).

The key is the shortage in liquidity: if they can't sell, they can't pay their staff, suppliers, taxes, banks and so on.