I would not worry about the pricing differential of a short sale verses a foreclosure. Your question is close to impossible to answer because of the variations. Take an example of short sales that are listed very low in order to simply get a short sale documentation package to the lender. This home you brought up may very well have had some offers on it, and in fact I would be willing to bet they have an offer in at the lender at this moment.
The process of being a buyer of a short sale verses a foreclosure is something you should be cognicent of. Pricing of a short sale verses a foreclosure is something that you really cannot control and to speculate on whether the post trustee sale pricing will be less or more then the short sale pricing may drive you bonkers.
Instead consider the following. In a short sale as a buyer you do get to benefit from getting a disclosure package from the sellers, (although it may be arguable that this package doesn’t amount to much at all) while in an REO you do not. In fact in an REO you will sign a verify comprehensive if not airtight liability release. You buy an REO and you find 20 dead bodies under it and there is nobody you can sue.
What drives people crazy is the open ended nature of a short sale. As we are seeing standard processing times ranging from many weeks to a few months BEFORE your purchase offer gets accepted. Let me repeat that… You see a home you love. It is priced well, you write an offer. It gets accepted by the seller, then sent to the lender… then you sit… and sit… and sit… meanwhile the home is still sitting on the MLS as active. Meanwhile the sellers CAN FIELD OTHER OFFERS and send them into the lender. It drives people batty… Now what happens if you submit your offer, and many weeks later the lender comes back and accepts. However in the meantime you have given up and found another place… You are okay. You are not locked into acceptance by any means because technically your offer is expired. However if they do accept and you are still interested then yahoo… you got your home at a good price… it just takes EXTRAORDINARY patience.
My advice for buyers who offer on short sales… have patience… submit your offers, then forget about the home…. continue to shop around and look around… maybe many weeks down the road you get that call of acceptance and you then can decide. However your buyers agent is powerless.. Your buyers agent CANNOT call the asset manager for instance. Only the listing agent can. It is very frustrating but can be rewarding.
The REO property on the other hand is great because you do get an answer in most cases quickly. However even in some cases the REO may indeed sit while the lender fields offers. I have seen that as well.
