Perhaps I am missing something here, but I do not understand your concern about how much more or less your bank may be getting for your home. You do have to sign off on the offers received, but once you go into the short sale process, basically the bank now owns the property. You can refuse and rightfully so to give them personal items like curtains, but the bank is in the drivers seat as to what they will agree to take/give/pay in order to get this property off the books. Good luck to you, I am sure you will be able to move soon. The Goshen market is perking right along despite all the foreclosures and short sales. I have a closing tomorrow afternoon on one of my listings!

I wanted to specifically answer this part of your question. "How low of an offer should we accept?" Your bank will take up to 10% less than the Fair Market Value of your home. If these offers are in-line with that amount I would suggest submitting it to the Loss Mitigation (Short Sale) department.

Your lenders would pay cllsing costs, warranty, etc. You can always say NO to pesonal items like curtains. Your agent should have explained this to you. You're not short selling this without an agent are you?

well, you can counter them back if you dont want to give your custom curtains and other things (but anything attached to the structure will be part of the sale). Now, if it's a short sale then ask your agent to write all those expenses(closing cost, warranty etc) to get it from the lender. In short sale, lender pays all closing costs.