[quote=Tillers]SD Realtor, the reason I’m not dropping offers on every short sale I see is because I am required to leave an earnest money deposit. That’s $3K tied up (for each one) for the bank to play with while they play games with me on the waiting.[/quote]
You don’t have to leave a deposit. They do that because it’s so common for buyers to just walk away from short sales. If you make offers on 10 short sales and decide to go with 1 of them once you get approval, that’s 9 short sales that get walked away from and those people have to find new buyers who have to find new lenders who have to collect all new paperwork, etc.
Until they show you they have the short-selling bank’s approval, don’t put a single dime down. Once they show you that they have short-selling approval, it’s time to get working and you will need to put your EM in escrow.
A word of advice, if they tell you that they have bank approval, tell them to give you a COPY IN WRITING. They should send you a nice letter from the bank saying they approve and what the terms are. I learned the hard way when I was told by my real estate agent that the bank approved the sale at our offer price and that we need to get our EM in escrow and choose a lender NOW NOW NOW!!! Only to have our chosen lender call us back and tell us “there is a second lien on the house that has not approved.” OOPS! Silly RE agents, when you said “the bank approved” you meant the first lienholder approved. Both lienholders/loans were from the same bank BTW.
In fact, ask for everything in writing. You can even see the progress on the SS negotiations by asking for a copy of the short sale counter offer form. That shows all the back/forth between the short-selling bank and your real estate company.
