Short Sales Are on the Rise Nationwide, Offering Investors Bargain Deals—Here’s What You Need to Know

In the heady days following the 2008 real estate collapse, entire seminars were devoted to short sales. Investors walked out with binders filled with scripts on how to talk to a bank’s loss mitigation department and what to photograph to convince them that their property was a financial money pit, increasing the chances that they would let them buy it for pennies on the dollar. We might not be back there yet, but the upward spiral of property taxes and insurance costs and the downward trend of house prices have left banks with toxic assets they’re in a rush to get rid of—offering investors the chance to pick some low-hanging real estate fruit. Short Sales Are a “Growing Corner of the Market” Foreclosures are currently outnumbering short sales 2-to-1, according to a new Realtor.com report. While short sales remain at historically low numbers, they are creeping up, hinting at worse to come should real estate holding costs continue to do likewise. According to the report, nearly 30,000 short sales took place in the U.S. in 2025, accounting for 28% of distressed home sales and just 0.6% of all home sales—a far cry from 2012, when they made up 9% of all sales. Explained Realtor.com econ...