San Jose Short Sale Agent: Silicon Valley Foreclosure Prevention Specialists

Starting today, December 1, 2011, Bank of America (BofA) makes the HAFA short sale process run easier and smoother by permitting them to be processed through the Equator system. The use of the Equator system made the entire short sale process at BofA go much smoother. It was only a couple of years ago, that BofA was often deemed to be the worst lender to deal with in the short sale arena. As the San Jose Short Sale Agent who has handled countless number of short sales with BoA prior to their transition to Equator, the changes in their service after converting to Equator were almost immediate. BofA went from the worst to best in a matter of months by a BBB (Better Business Bureau) survey. Unfortunately, the benefits and the efficiency of Equator were unavailable for those who were seeking HAFA short sales with BofA.

Until this announcement was made, all HAFA short sales had to be taken out of Equator and handled through their third party vendor call centers and fax machines. This meant things took longer and the inefficiencies of faxing documents to various fax numbers and non-employees came back into play. (But to be fair, even Wells Fargo which also uses Equator, takes the same approach with HAFA short sales and removes them from Equator). But with the announcement today that HAFA short sales can be processed through Equator, all is right with the universe. Now only if Wells Fargo will follow suit.

Bofa Announcement

Ask a San Jose Short Sale Agent like myself what the biggest potential headache in trying to get a short sale completed is, and I will bet the single most repeated response is the impatient buyer walking out in the middle of a transaction.   There is nothing as troublesome as working for weeks and months to convince a lender that the perfect buyer will close escrow and stop the foreclosure process, only to have that heroic buyer say they are moving on to another property or they are just tired of the waiting and want to take a break.

We listing agents try to overcome this havoc by having back-up buyers in place, however, the short sale apporval system was designed so that if the original buyer backs out, even if you had a back-up buyer in place, you would have to re-start the entire process.  Most of the time, you will be assigned to a different negotiator and the whole process which could have taken months, start over from zero.  And even if you had a willing back-up buyer who was extrememly excited, once they had been in back-up position for several weeks or months, they also lose interest or go out and buy something else.

The problem is the system, that triggers a “re-boot” if you will, when the buyer walked away.  The underlying hardship which caused the property to become distressed did not change; the verification of the financial condition did not change; the market condition did not change; the only thing that changed is the buyer and sometimes you can get the a buyer willing to pay the same amount.   So why have the whole process repeat? There is no rational purpose in starting from zero when a lot of the other procedures would have progressed.

Well, today Bank of America announced something which breaks from this ridiculous tradition and permits a back-up buyer to slide right in without having to start the whole process over.   Kudos to Bank of America. They are definitely going in the right direction and are living up to their declaration more than a year ago on their stance on short sales and whom they consider to be the clients in the process.  They are focusing on making the process go smoother, not just follow the trend.

As Bank of America is utilizing Equator to accomplish this, hopefully the other lenders and servicers who use the same system will follow suit and also do the rational thing.
BofA Announcement

Here is an interesting article about how the BBB (Better Business Bureau) rated the major loan servicing companies which handle loan modification and short sales.  It’s was an interesting read for me because I was having a lot of difficulties recently with Chase, they have been ruthless and unreasonable in their demands, especially when they are in junior positions.  It used to be that Bank of America was the bank that everyone doing short sales bad mouthed; but my feeling was Chase was getting up there.

I was far from surprised to discover that Chase had received an “F”  from the consumers who were dealing with them.  The interesting fact is that Bank of America, which used to be at the bottom has now received an “A+”!  I can attest to this change  as well, because with the implementation of Equator into their short sale business and with their executive, Matt Vernon’s, committment to change the way they approached short sales,  their level or service and the speed with which they handle matters have changed  180 degrees.   They are one of the best to work with right now.

Another interesting point that the article tackles is the bait and switch loan mods that we are beginning to hear about.  Homeowners being strung out for months on these “temporary modifications” and while waiting (and paying) getting foreclosed on without notice.  At first, these instances sounded like anomalies, but the frequency of these instances is increasing; thereby indicating some sort of concerted effort rather than mere fluke incidents.

See what grade your loan servicer received.

http://www.shamethebanks.org/jorge/bbb-f-grades-to-chase-litton-ocwen

I was fortunate enough this morning to sit in and listen on a webinar set up by Bank of America.  It was their effort to explain how they would better handle short sales from here on out.   The webinar was hosted by Matt Vernon, executive in charge of REO and Short Sales, for Bank of America with over 10,000 Realtors listening in who specialize in short sales.   He was the man in charge.

It was interesting to hear that they are focusing on dramatically  improving their short sale process because they want to re-establish their relationship with Realtors to strengthen their ties with us on their mortgage origination front . Apparently, there has been a lot of negative repercussion on  their mortgage origination front during this important time, when buyers are trying to buy properties to take advantage of the Federal Tax Credit. He emphasized this point at the beginning of the presentation and again at the end of the presentation.

They have re-defined the customer in their view of the short sale process. It is no longer, solely the investor, but the new definition includes:

1. Distressed homeowner
2. Listing Agent
3.  Buyer’s Agent
4. Investor

This was the order he placed  the various interested parties.  (Hmmm.  I wonder if their participation in the HAFA Program had anything to do with this?)

Then he went into full detail explaining how they are utilizing Equator to process short sales and how successful it has been for them from in the past few months from their own measurements.   I can attest to this fact.

This presentation today obviously was to address the negative image that Bank of America is suffering right now from Realtors who specialize in Short Sales.  However,  it was very refreshing for this huge organization to come out and pro-actively admit they have a problem and lay out what they are going to do to do as an institution to address the problem.   But most importantly, in my opinion,  learning that they are doing this because they are suffering on their loan origination side as a result of this bad publicity.

Call me old fashioned, but I always try to get to the root cause of why people or institutions change their behavior.  In this case, apparently, it is because of the money they are losing on the origination front.  This makes it real and insures Bank of America will follow through and live up to its announcement.   After all, it is about them making more money.