CreditShort Sale Buying and Selling
If you're thinking of getting a short sale done for your in-trouble home to avoid a foreclosure, you should know that a bank is not obligated to sell your house. When a bank or lending institution decides to do a short sale, they have to basically eat the difference between the amount of the loan you owe and the proceeds from the escrow, which will necessarily be less. They don't like doing this. A potential buyer can go through all of the rigamaroll of paperwork to pay for inspections, make an offer, put down the deposit, and get the sale process started. But as soon as they make an offer, the bank might then go ahead and attempt to convince you that you aught to refinance your home loan and stay in your house, so that the bank can avoid having to eat the discrepancy between selling price and what you.
But, a short sale contract in and of itself includes a stipulation by which a bank must approve the sale. A seller can get their money back in you are persuaded to refinance instead of making the short sale. The problem with this is that it ties up months of the buyer's time and money, and the buyer has to basically start all over again. So any buyer that needs to get a house in a specific neighborhood or has time pressures may be inclined to go for a foreclosure house instead.
Buyers will look for clues in a short sale to help assure then that the bank (or you) are not going to pull out at the last minute. If you've moved out of the house, a seller will be much more likely to want to buy form you, because that suggests that you will not be swayed to try to refinance your house instead of selling it in a short sale. If you're concerned that buyers aren't making offers, consider moving out of the house or making efforts to make it look as if you are currently in the process of doing so, and you may have much more luck.
Another thing is to make sure your listing has the stamp of approval: "Bank Approved Short Sale", which signals to potential buyers that the bank has approved the short sale, and only one need do so, so that the buyer knows your insurer or other parties aren't involved and won't tie up the process.