Can anyone share their experience of purchasing a short sale or foreclosure?

I bought a short sale this year. Made an offer then sat back and waited. I didn't hear a word for four months and then got notified the offer was accepted. That's the downside of a short sale, it will be a while before you know if you bought the house and your deposit, ours was substantial, is tied up for that time. You can put a time limit on the contract, accept by a specified date or we get the deposit back. We did but gave them six months because we were in no hurry. Closing was completely painless. We went to the title company with the balance of the down payment and signed the mortgage and title papers just like a normal sale.

One word of advice. Don't be afraid to make a lower offer. I've heard that if they get more than one offer and you're in the ball park they might ask if you would like to increase your offer. I can't confirm that. Our offer was accepted without any other contact.

My husband and I bought a foreclosure. We offered $10k less than the list price and the offer was accepted pretty quickly despite the contingency that we had to sell our other house first. As I recall, we signed the purchase contract in June and had settlement a month later.

In my experience and from what I've heard, foreclosures are easier purchases than short sales mostly because with short sales, as the previous poster indicated, the process is really lengthy and sometimes it does take months to hear any news, good or bad.

My tips? ALWAYS get a home inspection, be prepared to fork over more cash than you were originally told, be prepared for last minute delays and nonsense, and do whatever is necessary to maintain your sanity throughout the process. Even the first house I bought, neither a foreclosure nor a short sale, had unpleasant last minute surprises. Good luck!

Realtors are not too lazy to do short sales or promote them - the agent is making an attempt to furnish you with a caution that you would possibly want to manage to attend months, and it is totally troublesome so a minimum of be prepared in case you quite choose to purchase a short sale. That realtor is the fellow who would ought to hearken to you whine in the course of the approach once you totally comprehend how troublesome that's - so assure the agent you seriously isn't an annoyance or yell at them for issues outside their administration (like how briskly a monetary employer replies, what number archives you should placed up, what number hoops you may ought to leap by) I hear alot of people tell me i choose to purchase a short sale, so I say ok enable's bypass. Then i'm attending to hearken to the shopper whinge and so on for months after I informed them precisely what might want to take position contained in the starting up. Their money receives tied up, they see yet another residing house they prefer more advantageous constructive at the same time as waiting and so on and so on Its ' VERY annoying