In AZ a short sale with an offer should be listed as AWC and not pending until it is agreed on by the bank :)

Thanks for sharing your experiece with short sales. I like the part about how you tell your clients to keep thier eye on the suedo pending deal in escrow. This proves again that we turn something negitve into a positve;

Thanks for sharing your experiece with short sales. I like the part about how you tell your clients to keep thier eye on the suedo pending deal in escrow. This proves again that we can turn something negitve into a positve;

Thanks for sharing your experiece with short sales. I like the part about how you tell your clients to keep thier eye on the suedo pending deal in escrow. This proves again that we can turn something negitve into a positve;

I just ran into something regarding this in our association that caused quite a stir.  An agent put in an offer on one of my short sale properties for one client and then another offer on a short sale offered by another agent in my office for a different client.   The other selling agent pended the listing and my listing was not pended.  The buyer's agent was aghast that there were inconsistencies between the way each of the selling agents handled the listing. 

My partner and I have a very well thought-out business model in handling our short sales, which we believe is ethical and beneficial to all parties involved:

1. We never pend short sales because of exactly the situation you've described.  It is certainly not in our client's best interest to settle for the first (normally really lowball) offer on a short sale property. 

2. We have a sizeable inventory of short sale properties on the market and we accept multiple contracts on all our short sale properties.  It would not be unusual for a short sale property to sell above the listed price because of the way this is handled in our association. 

3. There is a built in contingency on the seller's side since the contract is subject to lender approval and this is stated on our Short Sale Addendum.

4. As a result of the difference in handling these transactions, our board has agreed that the short sale properties do not need to be pended for the reasons I outlined above.  However, there MUST be a clause either in the contract itself or an addendum that indicates to the buyer that the seller will be soliciting additional offers so that there is full disclosure.

To the best of my knowledge there has been no official ruling on this issue by NAR and from what I understand, each association may decide the way in which these disclosures should be handled.  Perhaps you could influence your board to come up with a similar method, afterall, "time is of the essence" in these transactions.

Best of Luck!