Yes you read that right, Countrywide has made some tweaks in their short sale procedures and so far, so good!   I submitted two short sale packages less than 2 weeks ago on two different homes, and here's how its gone:

1.  Telephone intake to see if client qualifies, they ask me questions on income, hardship and any other loans on the property.

2.  They qualify, so it gets sent over to short sale dept. 

3.  ONLY THEN, do they ask you to submit package, and they will tell you exactly what they need, and guess what? Its not EVERYTHING.  No tax returns, no mountain of paperwork.  Packages averaged 50-60 pages long. 

4.  Appraisal gets scheduled - and was done on these two properties within 10 business days!!!

5.  Then I get assigned negotiator.

Ok, so with this new procedure this is as far as I've gotten now, but in order to streamline it, they are only giving it to a negotiator when they have the package complete and the appraisal done.  Therefore the negotiator just negotiates the sale, no order appraisals, completing incomplete packages or other nonsense.. they get it , they work it out.

So I'll keep you all posted on the progress of these two sales as we go. . . but I am happy, seller is happy.  Countrywide says now 2-4 weeks to get assigned negotiator and 45 -60 days total processing time.  Not bad if they keep to that schedule as I have some others in since February and we're still messing with them (Countrywide and others). 

So far Carrington has been the worst with losing paperwork or just overall not knowing how to read the notes in their own system. 

Any other success stories out there? or other tips you'd like to share?

I've got short sales now with Countrywide, ASC, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Carrington and WaMu and just about to open one with Downey.