Hi Captain, Do hang in there and you may get the home. Just don't quit looking or keep trying for the home you have the sellers approval on. Be prepared for anything that may come your way and know that you have to wait.
We ALL have to wait and that is the way it is on short sales.
Have fun in the process.
Brian

Now I'm even more discouraged. We were told there was only one lender. We were not the first offer. The property was on the market about 2 months before our offer. Now its been almost 3 more months since our offer. The seller did sign and approve our offer!
We did offer More then the asking price, and are definitely ready to pay even more if they come back with a higher counter offer.
We are still looking at house's, "not putting all our eggs in one basket." Just seems that every house we find that we like is either a Short sale, a total fixer upper that is to much to handle for us, or just not right. Guess we will sit back and hope for the best. The best part is, we drove by the property the other day and the owner is not taking care of it, guess that probably happens a lot when people are going to lose their house.

There are short sale specialists. Their procedure is the same as everyone else. Generally the weekly call is the only communication the bank allows. I did find out the bank and go directly to their REO department on my last short sale and was able to get it done quickly. Try to get the Listing Agent to confirm you are not competing with other offers. It is an ugly process.

Do not count on buying or living in this home. There is not much you can do. If the Listing Agent submitted ALL info in an organized fashion and is keeping good communication the process may take 4 to 6 months.
Be PREPARED to pay more than your offer and also keep looking at houses. I heard that only 12% of short sales close with the first offer if they get accepted at all. Short Sales are a gamble and do not start placing furniture until you have the keys in your hand. Look at your "Short Sale Addendum" It says the Seller can cancel at any time. What happens if the bank does say OK to the short sale, But the Seller has to carry a note for the balance? The Seller can opt out at the closing table and you are out.
What happens if the bank goes out of business? What happens if the Bank thisnks the seller does not have enough hardship? What happens when the bank comes back and asks you to pay more than asking price for home if it is approved?
Please keep looking at other homes and if this on happens be happy. Odds are that the deal will not happen. If it does you will be lucky
This is not being negative, Just honest. I will ask a question to other realtors? Hom many offers on short sales have you written? How many closings from those offers?
Maybe 100 to 1?
Brian

Also, do NOT re-submit the offer unless the file is closed. This will start the process over! I agree with Brian. Did seller approve and sign your offer??

Captain,
In my experience, BOA takes business14 days to enter the offer into their system, then another 10 days to assign an asset manager, which usually is 20. In that time they order an appraisal and BPO to determine the value. (Given the selling agent has submitted the offer with all required documents! Which requires they do their homework before submitting.) Then plan that the bank will not call you when something has been done, so the selling agent has to call every week to check status. If you are the only offer and the highest then you might be good; if their are multiple offers then they ask for highest and best from all offers and that takes another two weeks. If they take awhille between phases ask for the file to be escalated.
Regardless, this process is LONG and drawn out and ALL of us are at the mercy of the bank's process. It all depends on the bank, the situation and hard earned luck. The bright side is many of us don't have a choice, in this market, but to deal with the banks and work very hard for our commission and the consumer gets a pretty good deal on an unfortunate home-owner. Perhaps not the bright side but you get the idea. Ask your agent to stay on top of your offer but remember the selling agent is at the mercy of a bank that is inundated with these deals (nationwide)! It is not unheard of to NOT hear anything for 60 days once the offer is submitted. (The start of this whole process.) 2 months is not that bad in my opinion... good luck.

I agree with Brian that resubmitting your offer might do more harm than good.

Einstein once defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Have you or your agent tried to contact the asset manager who's responsible for handling the first lien? If not, then that's another option. Another option is for you and your agent to look into the feasibility of shorting the 2nd lien and assuming the 1st instead--of course assuming that there's a 2nd lien (with another lender) on that same property.

So BofA has had the offer for 2+ months. 4 months or more with BofA would not be surprising. Resubmitting the same offer in my opinion wouldn't be an improvement - they might start the process over! BofA is supposed to have a certain amount of time/days allocated to each phase - but it sure seems to take a lot longer. Also are they the only lien holder or is there a 2nd lender involved?

Thanks for the good advice everyone. I just checked my paper work and our offer was submitted the last week of Aug. In the first week of September we were told they went into Phase 2.
Would it be a good idea to Re-submit our offer with more earnest money? We did offer more then their asking price originally, with a clause that gave them to the end of September to accept or we can buy elsewhere. We also put in an escalating clause just in case a bidding war started.

We are still looking at other houses but with no luck.

Again, there are other legal ways to deal with BoA--assuming they're the first lien holder--which won't require you to buy that home via a short sale. You can check into this more by speaking with a knowledgeable professional (a real-estate attorney, an investor, certain mortgage brokers, etc).

Technically, you won't speed up the short sale, but you could speed up the purchase.

Unfortuantely Daniel is absolutley right. There's really very little you can do to make it go faster.

You don't want to hear it, but I suggest you start looking again for your perfect home. Maybe this one will come through while you're looking, but either way you'll at least have options.

So-called short sale advisors are a dicey path. Some might be great - others pure scam artists. Might be very hard to tell. Some Realtors of course do specialize in short sales, and most of the ones working mostly with short sale buyers are great - but even they can't do much to motivate a bank that isn't willing to make the deal happen...

Bank of America - sigh. They are one of the banks that can really take a long - long time, meaning 4-6 months is not rare (or more if there are snags along the way).
Each bank has their own procedures as to how they go about with their short sale. BofA uses negotiators in three phases. i.e. phase one, phase two and phase three would be the closing negotiator. Each has a certain time frame and certain jobs that they are supposed to do or review the file. Some times documentation gets lost on their end - it needs to be resubmitted. They have to order their BPOs (Broker Price Opinions) appraisals etc. If the offer is too low in their opinion they can flat out close the file. The listing agent may be doing all they can - it's a process and not an easy one by any means. The agent or a negotiator can keep calling each day and some days you can get lucky and get updates. Seller is really typically out of the this loop i.e. dealing with the bank. Even with good negotiators or agents that know short sale the process may take a long time - because it depends on the bank and within the bank of each negotiator and their investors etc.

Besides working with a short-sale negotiator (which might or might not get you quicker results), there is another way that you might possibly able to help speed this up. There are other legal ways to negotiate with a first lien holder that don't require one to work with or obtain permission from the selling party. Most likely, you'll need to work with someone who's familiar with working with the secondary marketing department of a bank. Please feel free to contact me for more info.

Bank of America is definitely one of the very worst banks, sorry just honest.

I'm not going to tell you that its a good idea but its not a bad idea. Might be worth a shot.

I believe its Bank Of America.
If we introduce ourselves to the seller and get him on board would that be a really bad idea? Or at that point can we go straight to the bank and tell them to get there butts in gear and close on the property.
My sister said her house through a short sale sold in 2 months with the help of a Short Sale Adviser. Could that help any?
We decided that even if the tax credit extension does not pass we will still be getting a great deal on the house. Yet an extension would be really nice.

There really is no easy answer. You wouldn't be able to go over the agents head unless the seller was also on board with that. The seller has to give permission for anyone to talk to the bank. Unfortunately its most likely not the sellers fault that the process is taking so long. We are seeing this across the board, banks unwilling to close a deal.

The good news for you is that the tax credit is probably going to get extended until mid next year. Be patient, stay on top of the listing agent. There are lots of people in the same boat. Hopefully you are getting a great deal on your dream home and it will all be worth while.

Just curious what bank are you dealing with?

Daniel Herron
Keller Williams Advantage Realty
720-323-9178
danielherron@kw.com