Wednesday, 29th of February 2012 at 07:29:23 PMAnother question from a reader… How long does a short sale take in Arizona? I have 3 numbers to share, my fastest, my average and my slowest. First the average time it takes to close a short sale in the Phoenix area is about 3 months. There are lots of variables that come in to play, is there more than one mortgage that needs negotiating? If there is, this adds time to the process because you can only negotiate one property at a time. And is the seller cooperative? If they are not, forget it, move on, but usually the only way to find this out is after the process has dragged on.
Okay, so my fastest close ever was 23 days, and I was shocked, but it was near the end of the year and the bank was desperate to get the mortgage off the books before the end of the year so they were motivated and fortunately we were prepared for a super fast close.
My longest one was just over 9 months, the listing agent was hoping we would walk so she could re-list the property at a higher price and I actually advised my seller to move on, but he was pretty set on the property and a couple of years later when I go to visit, I can see why, he did a great job of renovating and he really enjoys the place.
So it can take a while to get it done and it’s hard to know going in, so if you are on a timetable, I would avoid the short sale, unless you have a long timetable.
