It is very common for short sale deals to come together in the midnight hour leaving precious little time between the the day you and loss mitigation agree on a price and terms. This can put you in a difficult position to fund and close the deal for a variety of reasons.

Lenders will be reluctant to postpone a short sale unless you can show good cause because if they postpone and you do not close it is bad for the lenders and a gross waste of time. When a lender postpones a sale they buyers that have been waiting for that property may be reluctant to show up at a later date for fear of wasting their time.

If you have a good reason to postpone lenders are often willing to postpone to the end of the month. Loss mitigators most often want to close as much as possible each month because it effects their statistics and many of them are paid bonuses based on the number of short sales they complete. Just knowing to ask for a postponement to the end of the month can be worth it’s weight in gold.

My Favorite Way To Ask For A Postponement

I like to make the postponement the lender’s fault. Here’s my favorite:

“I was all set to close this months ago when we started the short sale negotiations. But due to the LONG delay in getting your approval those funds have been allocated to other properties and I’ll have to order new funding. Can we postpone the short sale because of the long delay in getting the acceptance?”