Thread: What is your policy?

Thanks so much for your post. And I'm so sorry to hear about your frustrations with "not hearing back" etc. with these offers.

First of all, know you are not alone when it comes to short sales. Our team lives and works here in the Minneapolis real estate market. Though we are in different parts of the country, the same tendencies can be found.

Short sales are an extremely long process where, in spite of repeated calls from your agent to the listing agent, it may be MONTHS before you hear anything back from the bank and the agent.

Here in Minneapolis...a huge portion of our active for sale inventory on the MLS are short sales. You name it: condos, townhomes, homes for sale....

And it is so frustrating as agents having clients offer on these and then never hearing anything back. If we do, it again can be weeks or months.

Long story short, if clients have the time, we tell them to wait it out and have their agent stay persistent. The agents should be able to find out on the MLS sheet what type of financing this seller will take.

If our clients don't have the time, we encourage them to go onto another non-short sale house. Clients that find a bank owned property, REO, or regular listing will be able to negotiate much quicker with the seller.

Last note....if there is an offer on the table acceptable to the seller, it should be executed and sent off to the bank. The listing agent should be able to let other offerers know this. Again, it may not be accepted by the bank yet (and the agent does not need to disclose the terms, price, etc), but the agent should at least be able to let other buyers know this.

I hope this helps.