Short sales, worth messing with?


In general my thoughts on short sales are "stay away from them". I'm not a patient person, nor do I handle cluster#u@&s well. So to keep my blood pressure nice and low I stay away from shorts. I usually don't even write about them. I know some are actually getting sold. A co-worker of mine just did one up in The Retreat. So they can happen. Now what got me thinking is this listing.

2534 Tara Ln in Riverside. It's a relatively new custom built over near Hawarden Estates. It's a nice sized single story home with 4 bedrooms and 3 baths. From the pics it looks pretty nice. And the price for the area is great. But will the bank go for the listing price of $349K? (last sold for $744k) The listing says "the lender indicated they will take fair market". I don't know how they would figure out what fair market is over there. There has been nothing sold in that area for months near as I can tell. Redfin show's one similar sized REO selling back in Oct. But that home is on the other side of Victoria St. Not nearly as nice an area as this home. So how would they estimate fair market when there are no sales? There were two nearby sales of similar sized homes about 6 months ago. Both of those were close to $500k. This looks like a great price to the area but is it worth the hassle? For me it's not. This house is smaller than I am looking for anyway but maybe someone wants to give it a shot.