How much time does it take to buy a short sale/ foreclosed home?

Wow, what a great question and no one answer applies. It depends on how the lender handles the short sale. I've had them close in 30 days and I worked on one short sale that after 1-1/2 years, my buyer gave up and it never did close. With regard to a foreclosed home, that should be a normal closing time - usually 30 days is quite sufficent. These are homes that are already deeded back to the lender and it is a business transaction at this point.

That really is the question, Johana. As an agent that has closed more than 20 short sales for sellers, I can tell you that the shortest approval I have ever gotten from a lender was 2 days and the longest was over 8 months. It varies. And while SOMETIMES it can be attributed to the listing agent's ability to get to the bank, that isn't ALWAYS the case. Because of the nature of how a SHORT SALE APPROVAL works, it can often take a lot of time. For instance, if the lender that has to approve the sale is not actually the "investor" who has put up the funds, you have to go through multiple layers of approval to get an approval. IN addition, the actual investor might be some fund management company based out of China that only meets every 2 Tuesday of the month to address these types of requests. If that's the case, (and believe it or not, that is a REAL case I've seen) then the approval process can take a LOT longer than most buyers are willing to wait!

Mostly it depends on the bank. Once there is an agreement to buy a house and the bank agrees to the offer we can move to the closing. The problem is that the bank often takes a long time to make decisions and it can take months. If the buyer plans to buy for cash and no mortgage is required it can go more quickly.

3% don payment is all it takes for a primary residence. all you need is 640 credit score call me if you want me tio show you something I have a list of forclosed houses