You need to sit down with your realtor and have him/her explain all the pros and cons of a short sale. They can be very frustrating for the buyer but also they can get you a great price if you have patience. They are not for the faint of heart, and if you get emotional about your home purchase they will age you fast.
The biggest thing about them that you have to fathom is that you have no control over them. Neither does your agent. The listing agent has a tiny bit of well… not control but at least he/she can expedite the process slightly by making sure all the docs are in and the package is complete. Additionally he/she can make a call into the negotiator or loss mitigation officer regularly. Not to much so that they piss them off but enough to make sure they don’t forget about the transaction.
Try to remember that each negotiator has potentially a couple hundred transactions. While yours may be special to you, it is just another file on the desk to them.
So while you may steam and take it all personally and think…”I am gonna show that bank who is boss by laying the lumber on them and reducing the offer” the processing queue will not speed up one bit and in all probability you will lose the home. Every time a new offer is submitted a new HUD needs to be sent in from escrow and the process starts ALL OVER again. Similarly while your offer is in the queue other offers may or may not be submitted by the list agent. It all depends on many factors. If the offer you submitted was ACCEPTED by the sellers and then sent into the bank you are in good shape. If the offer was sent into the bank without acceptance by the sellers then the listing agent can indeed get more offers and send them in if they like. Now, sometimes listing agents will not send in more offers because as I said, they risk derailing the negotiators processing and the timeline pushes out longer.
My advice to you is to continue to look at other homes. If you like them put an offer on them. Ask you realtor to fully describe the pros and cons of the short sale process and what YOUR expectations to be with regards to timelines, and ask him/her to continue to poll the listing agent to see if other offers have come in and jumped yours.
