I had dinner with two very savvy real estate agents last night. These agents have been in the business for a long time and know their way around a short sale. They have listed and sold short sale properties. Neither of them will deal with short sales again.

I sympathize with them.  I don't want to deal with short sales either. Banks have no idea how to process these types of sales. Nor do they have the staff to deal with them even if they knew what they were doing. It's a joke. I did a number of short sales in the 90's so this is familiar territory. Last month I closed a short sale after an arduous escrow that saw my buyers ready to bail. The lender would only communicate via fax and refused to take calls even from escrow.

Lenders are just plain stupid at this point. They will not talk to a listing agent who might be able to expedite the situation. They don't use e-mail. Many will only communicate by fax. They change personnel and phone numbers and don't give out new information. They will approve a sale and then change their mind two weeks later. They will try to stiff an agent on commission after they have approved the fee. I know of agents who wound up receiving no money after working for 2-6 months on one of these sales. They believe we should work for free because they made poor choices. Then they wonder why good agents will not work these types of sales. They have no clue about local real estate markets. Yesterday one of the agents had a bank suddenly decide to go to sale rather then approve the short sale because they "knew someone would buy the property at auction for more then the short sale".... talk about out of touch.  <<CONTINUE>>