Let's face it cash is king. And as the story always goes, every king has a queen. Credit is that queen! And for many households the king has abandoned the castle. So the queen credit rules most households.

Good credit can be worth millions as some of you who bought million dollar homes for no money down can attest. Bad credit may be a legal reason for a landlord not to rent an apartment to you. So good credit is serious business.

Now then, if you're behind in making your monthly payments and the reasons are beyond your control, the circumstances unlikely to reverse themselves, and you can't refinance or borrow. And if you have good credit and you have tried everything you know to change your situation for the better, without success: Then a short sale may be right for you?

So what is a short sale? A short sale is a sale for less than what you owe.

You owe me 100 but I allow you to pay me 70. So you sold short for 70. You did not pay me 30. That number 30 is called a deficiency. You may receive a judgment or have to pay taxes for that deficiency.

You can never guarantee that a short sale will work. You can only TRY to do a short sale. The simple reason is the other party may simply not be willing to accept less than what you owe them. Or they may not like your offer. Or they just may not like you.

A short sale is never a perfect solution. The bank will not allow the homeowner-seller to receive any money ($0) from a successful short sale. Plus you are selling your home which means you have to move.

Completing a short sale is not rocket-science.

Gurus would like you to believe you need to do all these magical and secret things to complete a short sale. Wizard of oz stuff. But the facts are although you do have to understand what you are doing and pay attention to the details and be through, much of the it is like being in the military--you hurry up to wait.

You wait for the bank to give you permission to submit the information. You wait while they loss it. You wait while they review it. You wait...you wait...and you wait.

Even though YOU must move quickly to get your information to the bank, the seasons may change from winter to spring and to summer before the bank will make its decision.

The fastest completed short sale I've heard of was 3 days. But 45 days is still really fast. Since sometime in 2006 the time it takes to complete a short sale has been increasing. A typical short sale takes the bank between 4 to 7 months to complete these days. This is why short sales are complicated. Most short sales fail!

Generally speaking the bank will only pay attention to you when you are behind in making your payments.You may be able to live in the house rent free and save some money to prepare to move while the short sale is being negotiated. This of course means that your credit score is taking a hit. Still using this strategy your primary goal is to keep the foreclosure off your credit report. You can later work out most other concerns you might have

I want to share one last observation with you before closing. Many short sales fail because of poor documentation. So if you are going to do a short sale I encourage you to give the bank what they want, when they want it and the way they want it--kinda.

A person may send the bank their income statements but not their tax returns or their bank statements without their hardship letter. People send credit reports without unemployment information. And the "Word is" they just throw your documents in the garbage can?

In summary, you save your credit by doing a short sale if you are willing to be very patient in the middle of what is probably the most chaotic time in your life; if you and all parties to the deed are willing to participate and provide the bank with the documentation they require; if you are willing to move quickly; and if you understand there are no guarantees the short sale will be successful. I guess the moral of the story is when you are riding on an airplane that falls into the Hudson River--getting up on the wings just may be the smart thing to do.