Cash or Financing, if your offer is **** "too low" could not even been considered as a serious offer.
To increase your chances make an offer that you are comfortable with, but be realistic.
Ask your realtor for a comparable market analysis to determine a reasonable offer to be accepted, and be proactive.

Banks have mortgage insurance and sometimes they rather foreclose than short sale at a non-good-financial sense price a/k/a LOW BALL OFFER.

It is nice to try once, but if a Buyer do not get results by low ball offering, then...is probably not working!
Why to get frustated by keep doing the same thing over and over?

****15% or lower of MARKET PRICE ( Today Prices are already considered Mark-down for TODAY in Seller's Lenders mind in Orlando-Winter Garden area)

Assiria,

My name is Robin Speronis and I am the Owner/Broker of Zen Real Estate of Southwest Florida, http://www.AskZenRealEstate.com and as John stated chances are that any short sale will not close. You can increase the odds in your favor greatly by having a great buyer's agent who knows the players and can find the information and knows how to analyze the information.

There were court rulings in Mass., Ohio, and Kansas recently that prevent MERS (the lender's agent) from foreclosing. MERS represents about 60 million mortgages nationwide. Right now in Florida, you can only contest the foreclosure - and thus gain leverage in a short sale negotiation - if you answer the summons within 20 days of being served. Before my buyer puts an offer on a short sale, one thing that I do is pull the court docket and look at whether the seller has answered the summons and whether the seller has an attorney representing them. A good lawyer can tie up a foreclosure almost forever and pretty much forced the lender to accept the short at or below market value.

My buyers now enter into a short sale contract only if their offer is an exclusive offer and they put a $10,000 deposit down with the offer. Lenders are now looking at the buyers very closely to make sure that they are still going to be around in 4 to 6 months when the property is ready to close.

Short sales are very complex and take a long time. You really do need a great buyer's agent to represent you.

Good luck

Chances . . .

in 4 to 6 months you will fail 5 out of 6 times.

If you are GOOD!

John

Every bank is different, every short sale is never the same so it is almost impossible to answer your question with a direct answer.

If the bank feels that they can do better with a foreclosure/bank owned/or even a sherif's sale, then they won't accept an offer.

I would put it in, and have a good agent guide you through.

Good luck