Many sellers and agents do not understand what short-sales are and how they work. That is why so many attempts at short-sales fail - roughly only 1 in 3 actually sell. Many sellers and inexperienced agents think a short-sale is an easy way to get out of a house that has a mortgage larger than the current market value. Banks are not in the business of absorbing losses due to people's poor investment decisions. There are strict financial criteria set by each bank that the seller must meet to to qualify for a short-sale. Even if the financial criteria is met, most banks are only willing to forgive a portion of the mortgage. For many buyers, the time it takes for a bank to respond to a short-sale request (upwards of 90 days) makes the process very undesirable. A short-sale can be a great solution to a home owner in financial duress. However, more often than not, a homeowner attempts to use the short-sale as a tool to shift the impending loss on their investment to the bank. The short-sale process is not an avenue to protect the homeowner from a financial loss; it is in place to give the banks an easier more productive process instead of foreclosure. Unfortunately many home owners and agents are desperate to pass the loss off to the bank and lack the knowledge of the short-sale process. This results in an influx of homes on the market for sale as short-sales that have little to no hope of ever selling via the short-sale process.