[McLovin]

yeah, on the MLS I can see why they'd put that there. I thought for some reason you were looking through public foreclosure records, and it was flagged there, which would have been odd.

On the MLS, it's good to let potential buyers know up front that it is a short sale situation, because of the delays and hassles involved.

I know someone who just closed on a short sale. It took around 7 months start to finish. They paid cash for the house, though, which made it a lot easier and appealing for the bank. No buyer's loan approvals, etc. to potentially kill the deal.

I agree with your assessment of what's happening. The old guy did like millions of others, use the "House as ATM" trick. Although I'm not sure I'd feel too sorry for him. Because in the end, what he did was essentially sell his house to the bank, AND did so at "peak" value. The bank took out whatever loan he had previously on the house, AND gave him a bunch of cash. So, the old guy actually didn't "lose" anything in the deal.

Given that he lived there so long, he probably had the house paid well down, and got a sizeable chunk of cash from the bank. And, he'll probably end up living in the house rent free for at least a year, maybe more. So in the end, he never lost a penny on the house, cashed out of it at peak (or above) value, and gets a year+ free rent. Hard to feel too sorry for that.