Hello all,

Before the burst of the housing bubble, I was moving and my intuition told me that buying a home was not wise; I decided to rent a home instead.  Now that my intuition has served me well, I am done with the renting game and want to find somewhere I can live long term.  I thought I was in cat seat -- my household income is above average, I have good credit, and there an oversupply of housing on the market.  Well, it turns out that most of the houses worth looking at these days are "short sells."   I bit the bullet and decided to put an offer in one... despite the horror stories we all hear.  Well, I'm a simple person and didn't realize that these things can be a REAL pain in the you know what.

I have preapproval from my bank, have the owner's approval for the sale... now I'm just waiting to hear back from Fannie Mae (it seems to be like waiting for Santa Claus to write me back... does he really exist?).  My agent knows the game better than I do and his suggestion is to wait it out; in the meantime, I'm forgoing other real estate opportunities, gambling that interest rates won't rise, and possibly losing out on the government's first time homebuyer's incentive. 

As the buyer in this kitchen full of disfunctional cooks, is there anything I can do to expedite the approval process with Fannie Mae?  It just seems to me that somebody needs to go in with a caddle prod to push things along... if I'm the lone cowgirl when it comes to getting things done, so be it!

Thanks for any responses.  It has been about 45 days so maybe I'm being premature in my anger but, as daddy always used to say... "sh*t or get off the pot."  I wish Fannie would make a decision. 

RN