Monday, October 25, 2010

Short Sales. Short, NO. Sales. Possibly.

As I write this post, I think back to the wonderful seminar Bank of America gave at the beginning of the year about how great and easy their Equator system would be - transparency, efficiency, etc. to get Short Sales Processed. Cut to April. I find a friend that has a true need to sell - he's relocating, out of the country, no less, and because he bought at the height of the market, will have to sell short.

So, backed with my new knowledge of the fabulous process in place at BofA, we move forward. We get a buyer. We start uploading docs. A month or so goes by. We are contacted by the bank to arrange for their appraisal. The condo appraises above the offer, and the buyer backs out. The Bank says we must start over.

We market the property - and because I respect the Seller and his concerns of the other residents of the building, don't put the unit on lock box - preferring to provide a service to the Seller as promised. Another offer comes in it's early August now - at the price the Bank approved for the first buyer. The market has softened, and the other units in the building for sale are pulled from the market if they are regular sales, and one short sale goes back to the bank. Values in the building are down.

Alas, Bank of America calls for another independent appraisal. This time, the "value" of the unit is 10k HIGHER than the prior appraisal. Negotiations happen, the buyer steps up. The Bank continues to ask for the same documents to be uploaded in to their "efficient-transparent-fabulous" online system, and proceed with a series of ridiculous asks for all involved in the transaction. Time goes by....

We are now TWO BANKING QUARTERS in to this process, and still don't have the bank's ok to go to escrow. The buyer is getting antsy, and who can blame her?

The banks and their CEO’s - who I didn't think were in the position of wanting to own property, sure seem to want to hold on to a lot of it....Here's hoping we can close by year end. There are lots of unknowns still to work out as we move ahead - the only thing that is for certain is the banks continue to screw with the very people that deposit money and enable them to reap their huge year end bonuses, and the ordinary folks who have life changes and needs continue to suffer.

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