[quote]What exactly do you mean by ‘sticking around long enough for your offer to make it through the system’? What does one have to do, after submitting an offer? Sorry, I have no knowledge of how the short sales work – yet![/quote]
Submit an offer and wait, possibly several months, while the offer is being considered by the bank. Keep an eye on the market, make other offers. I heard that most short sale offers don’t go anywhere, and the success rate is very low. For this reason, discount brokers like Redfin don’t even deal with short sales (with a few exceptions). I would encourage you to keep shopping around till the day you get written approval of one of your offers.