Short Sales May Finally Get Shorter
Posted by Rachel LaMar, J.D. | Visited 259 times, 2 so far today | Currently 3 Comments »
The dreaded short sale…you find a property at a great price, make an offfer, and wait. Many times the bank takes months to respond, creating frustration among buyers, sellers and agents. I personally groan when I pull up properties for clients and see they are short sales; although I do show them to my buyers I tell them up-front that it could be a long time until the bank responds to their offer, so not to give up searching for other properties.
As a lisitng agent of short sales I feel I have a little more control, but only because I am willing to bombard the lender daily–multiple times a day if necessary–to get paperwork and answers. But as agents dealing with these types of properties know, every lender has it’s own policies and every short sale can be dramatically different from the previous one...but maybe not for long.
The newest buzz is that one of the largest lenders, Bank of America, is switching over to a new short sale system that will make the process easier for everyone involved. They are doing this via an electronic platform that will allow them to streamline the process, eliminating mounds of paperwork files for each transaction.
Timelines will be streamlined and everyone involved in the transaction will be working in real time to get the offers accepted and close the transaction in the time it takes for a normal sale to go through. Parties to the transaction will be able to log into they system to see status updates electronically 24 hours a day. The electonic platform will also automate decision-making for the lender, handle offer approvals in a speedy fashion and comply with all government programs.
It seems lenders have finally figured out what we agents have been screaming for years: that short sales benefit THEM too! They save the lender money and time, and get a property off the lender’s books; after all, the lender does not want to own all these homes. Short sales are a win-win for everyone involved.
As with most great ideas, hopefully other lenders will play follow-the-leader and make short sales a pleasant experiences for everyone.
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Finally, that’s awesome. It only took them a year or so to put that new process into place!