BiggerPockets

I've been told that once an MLS short sale has been approved, you can make an offer slightly lower (maybe a few thousand) than the approved price and it will still go through relatively quickly (as opposed to an unapproved SS).

Has anyone on here actually done this? How long did it take to get a positive response from the bank? thanks

I just made a $56K offer on a short sale approved at $82K (about 24 hours before it was to go into foreclosure). After about 2 weeks of negotiation by the listing agent, he got it approved for us at $57K. So, at least in this one case, I was able to go MUCH lower than the approved price and still got the deal.

I am currently a few weeks from closing on a SS, that I have been waiting well over 60 days. This listing was listed as pre-approved, go figure.

My agent advised me not to under bid because of the Pre-approval status. So as advised I went in at asking price, $59,000.

I will be putting a offer on another SS on Friday. I am going to offer $60,000 on the $65,000 listing price. I will update you on how that goes.

also I have had the lender send a counter offer to the home owner for a few thousand. Which has been denied because of lack of funds by the seller.

Thanks for the information Dustin. I've never heard the term "pre-approved" on a short sale--I've only heard of "approved" or "negotiator assigned".

About a year or two ago I made an offer on an unapproved SS--I waited on the bank for five months before giving up and backing out (I think I'd found anohter deal by that time anyway).

I guess I should clarify -- I don't know for certain that it's the listing agent who did the negotiations, but he's the one who seems to be asking for information and passing it on to the asset manager. It's possible there is a negotiator in the middle, but if there is, he hasn't been mentioned.

This property actually wasn't on the main Atlanta MLS (there are two here and some brokers are too cheap to pay for both), which I guess is why everyone was excited when we made the offer on the last possible day and why the bank is being more negotiable.

I have a feeling that if it had been listed on a the main MLS it would have gotten a good bit of traffic (it's in the same subdivision where we have already flipped 4 properties and investors are starting to flock there), and likely would have gotten an offer higher than ours.

But I'm not complaining... :D

This is the first short sale we've been able to get under contract, btw...

J Scott, what is the NOT main MLS? Have not heard of such a thing...

Every major area has their own MLS (it's not centralized), and in the Atlanta metro area, there are actually two major listing services -- The GAMLS and the FMLS.

Depending on which part of Atlanta metro you're in, it's much more likely that an agent is using one of these MLS services and not the other. Specifically, in my county, it's very common for agents to use the FMLS and not the GAMLS.

This property was listed on the GAMLS and not the FMLS. Either the agent is used to working in a different part of Atlanta (where the GAMLS is more prevalent) or he just didn't want to pay the fees to be part of the FMLS.