Short Sale Negotiations

I have been working a lot of short sale negotiations recently, and am considered the short sale expert in our office. Negotiations with Regions Mortgage have been very easy…I just got one approval in 2 weeks!  But, upon negotiations with Countrywide I have found there is no rhyme or reason to their timelines and processes. Especially if the deficiency is over $250,000 then there are more steps for the negotiator to take, which makes the process longer. The hardest part is knowing that the market is continuing to decline and the lenders aren’t accepting these contracts fast enough. You would think they would accept these short sales faster to get the non-performing loans off their books in order to loan money on performing mortgages. Then they wouldn’t have to go through the expensive foreclosure process and have the house get run down and sit vacant…which just starts a whole separate conversation…