I had an advantage because I was renting the short sale house and had a relationship with the seller, who happened to be a real estate agent (but not the listing agent). Having the seller advocate for you seems to really help, because in short sales they have an inside track and can push your offer hard. In this case the seller was really involved in the process and pushed my offer hard.

I came in right in the middle of the range the bank had claimed they would consider, which is definitely below market. I have tried to buy several short sales with no luck, and I think this time I was just really lucky. Short sales seem to almost never pan out.

Although I am not crazy about this approach, I think about the only way to be successful in a short sale is to use the listing agent as your agent. You will develop a relationship with them and they will really advocate for you. Otherwise they are not motivated to push your offer harder than others, and, lets face it, realtors who are getting double commission will work their asses off to make sure that deal goes through. I dont know what kind of games go on in the whole short sale process, but I have noticed those who are successful tend to use the listing agent as their agent. Just my opinion.

Did you simply put in your offer or did you provide any kind of explanation with the offer?

I ask because I missed out on a short sale offer and am just about ready to make another (on a different house) and I want to have as much arsenal as possible when I do so.

Rents will always provide the absolute floor, and that seems to be what Oceanside/Vista are bumping into now.

Without foreclosures greasing the wheels, nicer areas could take years to fall in price.

What probably would have happened without 9-11, Iraq and the subprime loans is a 15-20% drop from 2001 prices similar to what happened in the early 90’s after the defense boom ended and in the early 80’s after the first chip boom ended, followed by 2-5 years of rising at the rate of inflation until "the next big thing" happened to start the economy going again. Instead we got a phoney housing boom before post- dotcom home prices had time to find their real bottom, and the main candidates for the next economic boom (telecom and biotech) both withered as all the potential VC money went to fund real estate scams, the war and to tank up peoples’ SUVs.

So just to stick my neck out, I’d say bottom is 2001 prices minus 20% plus 3%/yr from 2003-2008, which works out to roughly 2001 prices minus 5%. Where does that end up for SD County?