short sale offers

[jcstarkey8826]

Being that short sales take so long for approval, are you able to put an offer on say 3 different or so, and just accept the first one that comes back?

this sounds like a dumb question, but Im having a hard time finding info online

[HoldingOntoHope]

When I submitted an offer on a short sale i was required to provide an earnest money deposit of $1,000 to the escrow company. The offer contract did have contingencies for withdrawal including non-acceptance by the sellers bank, flawed inspection or appraisal and inability to secure financing on my part. I changed my mind and purchased another property was not a contingency and would have forfeited my deposit.

I made an offer in June of 10 and did not get final approval of the offer until October. The mortgage process took until January of 2011. YMMV. I would suggest you contact a real estate broker / agent in your area who has familiarity with short sales and they can tell you what the benefit / pitfall of multiple offers and time lines are in your area as I am sure there is variance by region and state laws. I am in central California.

[Booner72]

We waited 3 months on a short sale and got fed up when the bank finally came back with a counter to our offer, which was 30K higher than the house was listed for by the selling agent.  Our new agent said she couldn't ethically put in an offer on the house we wanted knowing we had another offer in, but when I told her we were walking from that place, she easily and without delay, put in the offer to the house we bought.