“Will I Ever Be Able to Buy Again?” — The Honest Answer After a Short Sale

Posted on 23. Aug, 2026 by ctlms in Blog, Foreclosures, My Blog, News, Real Estate, Short Sale, foreclosure

I get this question from sellers all the time: "If I do a short sale, will I ever be able to buy a house again?" And I get it from agents almost as often, usually phrased as "what do I tell them?"

Here's the honest answer, current as of August 2026. And I do mean current — most of the numbers floating around the short sale world are left over from the 2008 playbook, and repeating them today is how agents lose credibility at the listing table. I re-verified every figure below before writing this.

## The waiting periods, loan type by loan type

1. **Conventional (Fannie Mae): four years** after a short sale or deed-in-lieu, measured from the completion date. Two years if documented extenuating circumstances — a job loss, a medical event, a divorce — caused the default. After a foreclosure? Seven years, or three with extenuating circumstances plus added restrictions.

That four-versus-seven gap is the single most important number on this page. It's the difference a short sale actually makes.

2. **FHA: three years** after either a short sale or a foreclosure. But here's a detail almost nobody brings up: a borrower who was current on their mortgage and installment debt at the time of the short sale can potentially qualify for a new FHA loan with NO waiting period at all. Late payments in the preceding twelve months generally kill that exception — but it exists, and it's worth knowing before your seller misses a payment they didn't have to miss.

3. **VA: no published mandatory wait** after a short sale. Most lenders apply roughly two years as their own overlay, and a foreclosure carries a two-year VA wait. So which lender your buyer talks to matters — the overlay is the lender's rule, not the VA's.

## Now the part the short sale ads won't tell you

Two honesty notes, because this is where short sale marketing usually goes sideways.

**First, the credit hit.** A short sale that reports a deficiency balance scores much like a foreclosure. So then you ask, "then what's the point?" The point is the table above. The real advantage of a short sale isn't a softer credit hit — it's the faster road back to a mortgage. Four years instead of seven on conventional. Potentially zero instead of three on FHA. Anyone who tells a seller "a short sale won't hurt your credit" is setting them up, and probably setting you up too.

**Second, these are the seller's numbers to confirm.** Guidelines change. Every figure on this page comes straight from the current Fannie Mae Selling Guide and HUD Handbook 4000.1, and your buyer still needs to confirm their specific situation with a loan officer at application time. I re-verified these before posting, and you should too before you repeat them.

## Why this matters at the listing table

Follow the seller's thinking, because it explains a pattern you've probably seen. A homeowner who believes a short sale ends their homeownership forever has no reason to act. So they do nothing. And nothing usually means foreclosure — the outcome with the seven-year wait, the worse exit, and none of the control.

Showing that seller the actual road back, in writing, is often the conversation that gets a distressed listing moving. Not pressure. Not a pitch. A table with three loan types on it and a date they can circle on a calendar.

## The takeaway

If a seller asks you "will I ever buy again," the honest answer is: yes, and probably sooner than you think — four years conventional, three FHA (sometimes zero), about two VA — but confirm your specifics with a loan officer, because the guidelines move.

I've been negotiating short sales in Connecticut since 2007 — more than 2,000 closed files — and we have this conversation with sellers every week. If you're sitting with one weighing this decision, send me the address and the approximate payoff. I'll tell you within a day whether it's worth pursuing.

As always, feel free to reach out to me with any questions.

Sean Wilder
Loss Mit Services
860-265-3727
CT Debt Negotiator NMLS #828273
Loss Mit Services is a dba of Accredited Home Services, LLC · CT Debt Negotiation License DN-828273

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