Short Sale acquisition - positioning, strategy, information.

[Roy N.]

All,

Short sales are well known and understood by many investors on BP.  They typically do not occur here in Canada, so my partner and I have no real experience with short sales - and to be truthful, while I have a theoretical understanding of a short sale, I've not paid the concept a lot of attention in the past for that reason.

There is a property we've been following for some time.  It has now accumulated 2-yrs (almost 3) years of property tax arrears.  It has been sitting vacant since April of this year and I learned today it will be going to a short sale (but hasn't yet).

We have yet to put boots on the ground to assess the property in person, but under the assumption it checks out satisfactory:

• would it be best to pitch an offer on the property before the short sale or wait until it is listed as a short sale?
• how would one find out the mortgage balance owing on the property?  {I tried asking the broker, but that went no where}?
• how would I find a list of any other leans on the property?
• it it possible to negotiate down the balance owing the lender and/or purchase the note at a discount to obtain control of the property?   If we were to do this, is it possible to execute a transfer of title/deed from the owner to avoid a foreclosure?

I feel like a complete rookie with all these questions, but this is new territory for us.