Nine Reasons Why I May Never Take On Another Short Sale

I've been dealing with a short sale listing for quite some time now. Really, I guess I'll never learn. It's been about three to four months it's been on the market and priced extremely well.

After having to answer innumerable calls from agents, buyers and not to mention the sellers who are the most affected by this, I've decided I will never take another short sale listing again. Besides not being in control of the situation, here are a few of the other myriad things that go wrong with listing a short sale:

1. The lender does not talk with you or communicate even their ballpark price. The listing agent is left guessing.

2. If there are two loans on the property, the situation is made even worse because even if the first lender co-operates, the second doesn't.

3. The sellers are constantly wondering if you're doing anything to sell the place.

4. The sellers are very inconvenienced, usually for months on end because even if offers come in, the house is still active on the market for others, just in case one falls through.

5. Buyers get tired of waiting and walk away before the bank accepts or makes up its mind to come up with a number.

6. Sometimes the bank will come up with a foreclosure notice instead of taking the short sale offer. Sometimes, surprise, surprise, the house will sell for exactly the amount of the offer, maybe less. (This actually happened to me with the last short sale - did I get paid? No.)

7. The agents almost never get paid. Really 5 times out of 100 is not a good statistic for a business to run on and that's how many short sales actually close.

8. Usually, the lenders don't know where paperwork is or really what's going on until a financial negotiator takes up the file.

And finally...
9. I almost always lose favor with everyone involved: the buyer's agents, the sellers and the potential buyers. How many times and in how many ways can one say, "Nothing yet?"