My husband and me did a shortsale on our home in 2007. We proved hardship with all the forms, proof of income...savings, bills etc. We had to go through an inspection of the home and the realtor began our short sale process in August of 2007, we had numerous people wanting to buy except the bank kept turning them down. We stopped the process for 2 months due to my mother passed away then started it up again in Nov 2007 (after we moved out).
A buyer came in from California purchased our home in Dec 2007; all the paperwork and finalization did not occur until the end of March 2008 due to slow processing from Wells Fargo. The rest of the amount owed was forgiven and we even got a few thousand back at signing during key turnover at the realtor's office. We were informed that a shortsale is better than foreclosure or deed-in-lieu due to we would be elgible to buy another house in 2 years.
Actually after having built that house, completly disliking our noisy neighbors, and us both laid off from IT in 2003 it took a while to find a job in a saturated market at that time. So buying another house is not high on our priority list; we enjoy renting. Its nice to not be under a long mortgage any longer and great to have the freedom to move especially with my husband's job that constantly speaks of relocating us. A short sale was the best move we ever made. We had a great realtor that worked hard to get our home sold. Good luck. do what is in your best interest.