A new term we have come to know and "hate" as realtors is short sale. People just see a great price and don't realize that the asking price is not an accepted price from the bank.

As a listing agent you can not find out what price the bank will accept until you have a valid offer. The only way to ensure yourself of getting an offer is to price the property low. Once the property gets an offer the property finally gets looked at by the bank. MONTHS LATER, you might actually get a response, most likely a counter offer that is higher then asking and totally unrealistic.

One of my agents called an agent to see if there were any offers on a property that is a short sale, they said there were four offers on the property. 2 couldn't stand waiting, one bought something else, and one died. WOW Amazing in this "bad market" 4 offers on a property, 4 people ready to buy, ready to close.. And a short sale, with a crazy asking price preventing them from moving on to the next home.

As a team of 4 people, we currently have 9 offers on short sale properties, the longest was 12 weeks ago and every week we call the listing agent. Every week we hear there is nothing new. All this work for nothing!

Banks really need to do something to prevent this from being such a long process. They need to help realtors to price the home and tell them ahead what they need to close the property. They are the ones suffering by not doing the work ahead. Banks are not being sensable and hurting themselves in the long run. If you have an offer don't take months to respond and make the buyers run and scared to persue the property. I am so sick of stupid banks hurting the market, they are the cause of a lot of the problems in the market now!