I have a bunch of cooperative short sales in Sacramento right now through Bank of America that were preapproved through the Cooperative Short Sale program. We have a preapproved price, and the sellers have signed a Borrower Acknowledgment of Interest in which they state they will not need to supply any financials for Fannie Mae. Ever since November 1 (when the new guidelines went into effect), I've struggled with Fannie Mae short sales, and nobody at Bank of America is talking.

In some cases, the short sales are turned into traditional sales without any explanation. These conversions will undoubtedly disqualify some of my sellers. The negotiators are suddenly demanding financials, last two years of tax returns (not just the 4506T) in addition to a hardship letter, etc. In others, the approved sales price is too high to ever appraise at that price. It's like Fannie Mae has decided it no longer wants to do a short sale and will attempt to thwart it every which way that it can so it doesn't have to publicly reject them. They can say it failed for some other reason.

What do you think is really going on?