You need to understand how the short sale works.
1. The current owner is the seller.
2. The deal must be approved by the lender(s).
3. The waiting time can be very long, from 2 months to 18 months.
4. The bank almost always counters at this time.
5. The bank will approve the deal based on the independent broker's price
opinion.
6. If there are two lenders, usually the first bank will only let the second
bank to net a certain amount of money, such as $3000, but the second bank
may insist to have much more than that.
7. The seller may take your appliances though s/he should not do that.
8. By the settlement date, the seller may refuse to move out.
9. The seller is not going to fix anything for you.
This list can be very long. You do need a very experienced agent to handle
it.
Though I have been a listing agent for many short sales, but I do not
recommend you to use the listing agent as your buyer's agent as the conflict
of interest.
