If you are waiting on the answer for a Santa Monica short sale or any sale for that matter, it can be frustrating. You always want the sale to go faster than it typically does. When a Santa Monica short sale happens, a seller’s lender agrees to accept less than its unpaid mortgage balance. The bank agrees to take a loss and get rid of or sell the property rather than go through the foreclosure process and lose even more money. Some people who are waiting to purchase a Santa Monica short sale may end up waiting six months or more for a response. When you are looking at Santa Monica short sales, the list prices are generally not real. Typically buyers will move towards short sales for two reasons. For one, the list price looks really good and they believe the seller must be desperate to ask for so little. This is not always true. Not every Santa Monica short sale is in the foreclosure stages, so the sellers are not always so desperate. Sometimes the listing agent will price the Santa Monica short sale in such a way so that it will attract multiple offers. Your short sale agent will help with the negotiations but the true negotiation does not lie with the seller, it is the lender’s negotiator that holds the power. Sometimes a buyer thinks they should wait for the property to go through with a foreclosure, this is up to them to decide. It also should depend on whether or not the property has multiple offers. The highest and most qualified offer will most likely be accepted. Some home buyers wonder if the Santa Monica short sale price will be lower after after a foreclosure. Don’t be discouraged if the bank rejects your Santa Monica short sale offer, just watch for it to come up as a bank owned property.