My apologies, dear House Advantage readers. I've been in Arizona for a mandatory meeting. I was selected to participate in the Nevada Association of Realtors Leadership 2008 program, and our first meetings were in Scottsdale this week. It was very difficult to be away from my business for a week; however, continually enhancing my knowledge and my skills allows me to best serve my clients.

If you've been reading my blog since its inception, you may recall that in my very first blog entry I predicted that sales would begin to rise in late February, signaling the bottom of the market in terms of sales. I was dead-on in my prediction; in fact, pending sales began to skyrocket in the middle of the month. For those of you who have been sitting on the fence waiting for the bottom, it's time to act while you have the advantage of getting a jump on Mr. and Mrs. Typical Homebuyer.

In another sign of the rebounding market, two of my clients have had full-price cash offers on foreclosures rejected this week. It appears we are very close to the bottom of the market in terms of pricing, if we are not already at the bottom.

Jason M. submitted a highest-and-best offer at above full price, and we have yet to hear back from the bank. This generally indicates that the bank is negotiating with a buyer who submitted a better offer.

Michael T. revised his offer to a full-price offer, but too late -- the bank negotiated a counteroffer with another buyer. As I told my client, when a bank is selling houses for 50% off, don't try to nickel-and-dime the bank. Had he offered what he was willing to pay right up front, he'd probably have picked this up at what was still an incredible price. Instead, the other buyer won.

The short-sale-from-hell closed while I was in Scottsdale. This short sale was a four- or five-month process, and the toughest deal I've ever negotiated. A short sale generally takes six to 10 weeks, but I stepped into a mess that had been created long before I arrived.

In the final week, the seller demanded money from the buyer that he was not entitled to. A seller who sells short is not allowed to receive any part of the proceeds. A short sale is generally much less devastating to the seller's credit than a foreclosure, but this is little incentive to sign for a homeowner who no longer cares about repairing his credit.

The seller shared with me that he had no money to move and didn't even own a car to leave in! I went back to the lender to ask if they would have a problem with the buyer paying the seller's moving expenses. This seller had no car and no money to even move out. The bank understood that closing the deal with the seller still living in the home could pose serious problems for the buyer. Fortunately, the bank had no problem with the buyer paying moving expenses, clearing the way for this escrow to close.

So things went smoothly after clearing this last, difficult hurdle, right? Of course not. Things never go smoothly with short sales. One more, last hurdle: The buyer hadn't arranged to wire her funds until the last minute, despite my urgent reminders that the bank would not extend the deadline a second time.

The buyer thought that moving $610,000 could be done in a matter of minutes, despite my efforts to educate her that this was not the case. When she learned her investment broker had three days to provide the funds she'd requested from her account, we were already at the absolute, final deadline.

What could I do but pull off the impossible? When it comes to achieving an important goal, I'm not beyond begging to further my cause. "Pretty please with sugar on top" usually works, and in this case I was able to buy the 72 hours I needed to pull this miracle off.

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