In my personal case I am very risk averse and would never add anyone else to title or loan on my own house. If you reread what I wrote, I said it was an “option”, nothing more and nothing less. In general adding other people to title exposes them to all the risk that you have as a homeowner whether there will be problems with short sales like you mentioned, or even worse, litigation involving the home, accident, catastrophe, etc…Similarly the problems of the gifter also become your problem, so if your mother in law loses her ass in vegas and loses the home, you are screwed!

However it is an “option” and that is what I presented. I have seen cases where parents did go on title with the kids. It was their choice, not one I would have made but they did it.