Nothing drives buyers, sellers and agents more crazy than when a buyer “walks” on a short sale, there’s a back-up offer – and the lender doesn’t consider that back-up offer. Rather, the first offer’s file is closed and the entire process starts from scratch. Weeks are lost.

Agents desperately hope the 2nd buyers are patient! But often times they’re not – they move onto another home and the process repeats itself.

I listed a cute short sale home down by the beach some time ago with B of A as the lender, and had to repeat the process 5 times before we could finally close because I had to start new every time with every offer! I’m sure that sale took years off my life in frustration!

Bank of America said just last week however that they’re now significantly altering their short sale process by looking at the back-up offer without closing the original file. Why this wasn’t figured out long ago I’ll never know. Now if Wells, Chase, et al, would do the same…!