It has been my experience of late that the common threads in shorts dying have been:
-Irritation/lack of attention on the part of listing agents. They don’t stay on top of the lender or they stop caring, or, as in your example, they piss off the buyers/buyer agent by not communicating their goals or action properly.
-Delay by lender. The lenders in my listings state that they need 30-60 business days to consider a listings. 3 months is an unreasonable time to leave a buyer wondering. Also, the buyer/buyer agent is left wondering if the listing agent is actually moving forward and staying on top of the lender.
-Impatience by the buyer. This is directly related to the last issue.
-Prejudice by all parties. Shorts have such a negative rep in the industry now that many agents have stated that they will not handle them anymore. Some offices have a policy that their agents are not permitted to handle them. The horror stories that abound right now are also creating a largely derisive folk knowledge among the buying public themselves. Recently, I saw a pre-approved fast track short listing. The seller was an asset manager or wholesale loan rep for a major lender (yes ironic). It took the agents months to get any offers. Now this is the kind of short where the owner’s office mate or former coworker is approving it. Still popular opinion drives down demand heavily.
Anyone with inside or useful info, sound off.
I would like to really construct a model of short sale dysfunction. Maybe we could learn how to address it better.
