What bank is the mortgage servicer? I am deep into the short sale process with BOA for a friend right now. Do you know if they put down 20% at closing?
With BOA, I got the short sale process started by calling their Loss Mitigation department (when the loan was still current). I asked them to send a letter with what they needed in the short sale package, and they told me to have a realtor put it on the market for current value, and send the package in as soon as we got an offer.
I took some vacation time, purchased a storage space, and helped get the house cleaned up for showing (touch up paint, new toilet seats, fixed the ice maker, removed alot of extra furniture to make he rooms look bigger, worked on the yard, carpet shampoo, fixed a dryer vent, new blinds, calking, and a super cleaning of everything). As soon as I was done, I had it listed. My neighbor is the realtor, an he walked through the property with me before I started working on it, to give me a list of things to get done for it to show better. I think there were something like 60 things to do, but most of it was cleaning, and fixing a couple of things. Went over there 5 days straight and got through it all with the help of a couple of friends that were good at touch up painting.
Short sales are hard work, and patience is needed, but they can be done. Many people get frustrated and only about 10% see it through to a successful completion. It has been just over 3 month since we listed the property, 4 months since I took vacation to get the place in shape, and I may have the final negotiations done this week if I am lucky. The investor and BOA has already approved it, need to negotiate with the PMI company and get the terms of the short sale letter worked out before a closing is set.