Well, a short sale is certainly not short on paperwork...

Bleck. No fun at all.

But, in the end, it's what we have to do with our beautiful and amazing home in Rochester Hills.

A short sale is not so bad, it turns out. You stop making payments on your house for at least two months. That drops your credit score about 50 points, but it's only affected for 12-18 months. (Could be so much worse, right?)

Then you wait for an offer on the house and when you get one, the mortgagor has to approve it at the sale price. That can take four to eight weeks. Talk about painful waiting!

When they do approve it, they include all costs, including realtor fees. And your done.

It's like an insurance policy for the mortgagor. They get the most money they can without the risk of losing most of what they've invested in it.

We walk away with nothing -- no equity, but no mortgage either. It's like starting over from scratch -- something I've wanted to do for a very long time.

See, there's that silver lining again.