As a San Jose Short Sale Agent, one of the complaints I hear most often from both Realtors and the general populace is that Short Sales  take too long to get approved by the lenders.   And generally this is a legitimate gripe.   It is quite typical to take 30-45  days to clear a phase 1 negotiator, then another 30-45 days to clear the phase 2 negotiator, then possibly another 30 days for investors to make the final decision  if a loan servicing company is involved.   I have  a Bank of America file that we submitted a short sale package on 8/10/09 and as of today, they still have not given us a final approval (the second has agreed, but the first still has not gotten around to giving us a final written answer yet), so my bi-weekly calls to the negotiator continues.    We put that house on the market in June.   Hence, most files fall somewhere in between these two extremes.

This record breaking file involved CitiMortgage on the first and CitiBank on the second and it involved an investor too!  The key is doing the right prep work initially and getting the requisite documents over to the lender on the first try, so there is no time wasted going back and forth to complete the file.   After you do this as a specialty for a while,   you know what the lenders need to make their decisions.

Needless to say, CitiMortgage is now another favorite lender besides Wachovia.    If these are your lenders, please contact me.