Can a Northern Virginia Buyer have multiple ratified Short Sale contracts?
The answer to that is complicated. In the spirit of real estate monogamy, where one motivated Buyer and one motivated Seller get together to make a successful real estate transaction, the practice of writing multiple offers, in hopes of having multiple ratified contracts on Northern Virginia Short Sales is, in my eyes, unethical. Technically, you CAN have multiple ratified contracts on Short Sales, but the question really is---Should you have multiple ratified Short Sale contracts as a Northern Virginia Buyer?
Most Short Sale Sellers are trying to avoid Foreclosure. A Short Sale is less damaging to a home owner's credit than a Foreclosure. And in Northern Virginia, the Short Sale Seller's agent is obligated (by the rules of the local Multiple Listing Service) to remove the Short Sale Listing from active status once there is a Ratified Contract. This means that if you, as a Buyer 
have three or four ratified Short Sale contracts and one of them gets Approval before the others, you are putting the remaining three Short Sale Sellers that much closer to Foreclosure. Do you want that hanging over your head?
If your answer was something like, "Not my problem," then you would be a candidate to have multiple ratified contracts on various Short Sales. However, it would be good business to have a clause in your offers that alerts the Sellers to the fact that you have multiple ratified Short Sale contracts in play and that if one of them is Approved you reserve the right to give notice to void the other offers/contracts. This does two things:
For one, it puts the Short Sale Sellers on notice that you are not really waiting for their Short Sale Approval, but playing the field. That way, the Seller knows they are putting their avoidance of Foreclosure by way of Short Sale at risk when they accept your offer.
Secondly, and most importantly to you as the Buyer, if your offer gets accepted and turns into a contract, you will have an out with the Short Sale contracts that have not yet been approved when one does get Short Sale Approval.
As a licensed Associate Broker in Virginia that represents both Buyers and Sellers of Short Sales, I would say there is only one thing a Buyer should consider before writing an offer on a Short Sale.
Is that Short Sale property worth waiting for while NOT pursuing other properties in the meantime?
If the answer is no, then you should move on. That Short Sale is clearly not the property for you. If it's not worth waiting for, it's not for you. Home buying, in my opinion, shouldn't be the equivalent of buying a lottery ticket and seeing if you win. You should truly want one house above all others and if it's a Short Sale, be willing to wait.
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