Every week since spring, our operations and negotiations team has been spending about four hours reviewing roughly 100 accounts under contract, then the next hundred the following week, every week until we’re done. Then we start again. The goal is simple: make sure we're handling this year's unusual circumstances as well as we possibly can (and as always, far better than anyone else). We plan to keep doing it until things get back to normal in the industry... whatever normal means now.

Here's what we're seeing, and what it means if you're listing a short sale right now.

Short sales are back in places we haven't seen them in years

Nationwide, the biggest change has been a sharp increase in short sales in states like Colorado, Florida, and Texas, with steady increases nearly everywhere else, including more rural states like Oklahoma and Maine, where short sales have been largely absent for the past eight years.

For perspective, just a few years ago we averaged around 250 active listings at any one time. Today we're north of 900, a 260% increase in less than 24 months. Keeping pace with hiring and training has been a challenge, but the short sale industry is always changing, so we've always had to be a training organization first, before anything else. Unlike major servicers, we're using that experience to bring new team members up to speed as quickly as possible.

Why loss mitigation departments are struggling to keep up

Most loss mitigation departments at the major mortgage servicers are struggling to keep up with the volume. The biggest factor we see is their training, or lack thereof. Many of the servicing associates we speak with have less than six months on the job, and even those with more experience were often poorly trained to begin with and have only a shallow grasp of basic servicing rules and procedures. Files stall on issues a more experienced or better-trained negotiator would resolve in a single call… but there are very few of them around in comparison to the volume of new transactions.

Government agencies like FHA, VA and the CFPB appear to be stretched thin as well. Escalations that once got a response in days now take much longer, if they get one at all. That's a big reason we're adding staff: more people on our side means more consistent follow-up, which is often what it takes to move a file forward.

How servicing transfers are affecting short sale approvals

Adding to this perfect storm of servicing failures, the industry also went through a major shift that began in 2025 and evolved into complete chaos around March of this year. Rocket Mortgage (formerly Quicken Loans) acquired Mr. Cooper (formerly Nationstar), and United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) responded by bringing its mortgage servicing in-house. Servicing transitions are always difficult. New systems, new staff and new procedures mean files get delayed, documents get requested again, and negotiators change mid-stream.

We expect both Rocket and UWM to improve as their teams get trained up, but it’s impossible to gauge how long it will be before servicers like UWM, which currently ranks last with an average of 215 days in negotiations, get their process in line with buyers’ expectations. Until then, every loan they service will be far more likely to foreclose due to preventable servicing errors. Meanwhile, a handful of servicers, like LoanCare, have remained consistent, and the difference shows in approval timelines.

What listing agents can do right now

A longer timeline doesn't have to mean a failed sale. A few things make a real difference:

• Set expectations early. Tell your seller, and any buyer who's interested, that approvals are taking longer this year. Buyers who expect a quick answer are the first to walk.
• Find out if the loan was recently transferred. A servicing transfer mid-file usually means resubmitting paperwork. Knowing early saves weeks.
• Keep your negotiator updated. Status changes, showings, price changes and new offers all affect how we push the servicer. The more current our information, the harder we can push.
• Document everything. Names, dates and reference numbers from every servicer call make escalations far more effective.

What we're doing about it

Working with SSC means none of this is yours to bear alone, we handle it all for you. And to keep our promises of double the success in half the time, we're hiring and training ahead of demand, reviewing every file under contract on a rotating weekly basis, and escalating to the investor or even the courts when a servicer isn't moving. If you're listing a short sale and want a team that's watching your file this closely, reach out to us here.