Tragedy…this home could have been saved only if…

This is the final chapter in a painful story of a Short Sale gone bad.

The “Bankruptcy Negotiator II”, Ryan Bickerton with American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc(AHMSI), refused to accept a short sale purchase agreement offer of $264,000. AHMSI’s supporting appraisal completed 3 months prior was there basis. In our current market…3 months is a lifetime. With home prices dropping at a rate of 3-6% per month, our offer would be in-line with the market at close of escrow.

2 months later the property is back on the market advertised as a “Bank Owned Property”, MLS# i08151962, listed price is $245,000. Go figure!

Mr. Bickerton is the systemic problem with our banking industry. Mr. Bickerton is a “pulse” filling a position that requires intellect and experience to make fiscal decisions that affect investor’s fiduciary interests. His superiors should be held responsible for placing him in a role that he is clearly not fit to handle.

American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc is a small warehouse that services loans. They should be held responsible for their “contribution” to the demise of this nation’s current economic state. Place their leadership on trial for their negligence. This may seem harsh; however, they are the problem!

I am on a soapbox with this message; however, if we don’t hold these decision makers responsible, they will plague us for years to come. The government will, no doubt, come to their or their affiliates rescue at some point and our hard earned tax dollars will bail them out.

With all of the hype of “loan modifications” and “government bailouts” you can’t help but feel that there is a solution somewhere that will save you from loosing your home. I’ve been watching the news, reading everything that comes across my emails and can only say that I get a little sick to my stomach at times.

One must really think about long term when faced with an opportunity to modify an existing loan. It’s such an emotional time, the fact that your going to lose your home is beyond anything I could put into words, believe me I know first hand! The stress seems to go away when you are told that if you just “sign here” you don’t have to move and you get to keep “YOUR HOME!” Wow, those are words that you’ve prayed for.

Here’s the hard reality;what do you do in a few years when you find that your so upside down in the home that you can’t refinance to a lower payment, or worse yet need to move and have no chance of selling unless you do a short sale….and who knows if the lender will be willing then?

As I work with our clients and their lenders on loan modifications, one thing has been consistent. Lenders are not in the mindset to help their current clients. They go off of black and white paperwork, if the borrower fits their criteria they offer up some type of a loan modification. I’ve never seen one, no never, that was an advantage to the borrower. They are a bandage at best!

Lenders are not willing to take into consideration the fact the home is 30 to 50% + upside down. They will usually extend the borrower a lower payment and add all of the “accrued” interest to the end of the loan. We have seen a few lenders discuss the possibility of reducing principal balance 5%, but have not had ONE accepted as of today.

The point here is there is no magic wand, no real fix for the mess of our housing industry. Loan modifications may work for some people, if they are not seriously upside down in their home.

Having lived through the loss of a home, and of course trying anything possible to keep what was “mine”. I look back and realize the blessing of not being given the chance to keep it. Now that the emotions have died down the fact is that if we would have kept that house at it’s upside down equity, I’m not sure if we would have seen it appreciate enough in our life time to have equity….it was nearly $200,000 upside down a year ago…and still dropping.

Those four walls that seemed to mean so much to us now sit empty like hundreds of other homes in the city. I’ve realized that it’s human nature to fight for things that are ours, no one wants to be told they don’t have a choice. Here’s the thing, you do have a choice, you can choose to get out of a bad situation that will most likely get worse before it gets better.

The market is still declining, most loan modifications are going to keep you locked into a home that is going to continue to drop in value. Think about your future.…you can most likely find a wonderful home to live in while real estate continues to drop. Then buy again for half of what you owe on the four walls that you leave behind.

Short Sales were not widely accepted a year ago. In today’s market, your lender is ready to get these bad loans out of their inventory. The President has also realized that people are in need of help and signed into action the mortgage relief act, this relieves home owners of the liability of gains. When your thinking about your “choices” try to step away from the emotions. If it makes financial sense to keep the home, just be very careful to check with your lender before you pay someone to do a loan modification for you. You will be able to talk to your lender/s and find out exactly what terms they will offer.

From the heart of someone who’s been through it…

I found some great information on a blog post today from the OC Register. The story was focused on the Orange County area, but clearly shows the degree and areas that were hard hit with unsavory loans in the Inland Empire.

The loans that shook the financial world started small.

In 2004, the first year that the Fed’s Home Mortgage Disclosure Act database tracked high-priced subprime loans, subprime was a bit player in the California home market.

But a Register analysis of HMDA data shows that subprime quickly grabbed market share in lower middle-class neighborhoods up and down the state in 2005 and 2006. In 2007, as subprime giants like Orange-based Ameriquest and Irvine-based New Century downsized or shut down, subprime again became a bit player.

These maps show the spread and retreat of subprime loans in Orange County and neighboring counties from 2004 through 2007. Another set of maps below describe a similar pattern statewide.

These maps represent what we’re calling the subprime penetration rate, the percentage of total home loan volume in each census tract that was high-priced. Yellow on the map indicates that subprime accounted for 15 percent or less of total loan volume; green is for 15 percent to 25 percent; light blue for 25 percent to 35 percent; dark blue for more than 35 percent.

A caution: The industry defines subprime using credit scores; the Fed defines high-priced loans as those that cost at least 3 percentage points higher than a Treasury bill of comparable maturity. The two terms don’t match, but the Fed’s high-priced category appears to capture most subprime and some alt-A loans.

In 2004 there are just a few pockets where subprime lenders grabbed more than 15 percent of the market: most notably in central Los Angeles between the I-110 and I-710 freeways, and in the Inland Empire, especially along the I-10 corridor.

In 2005 and 2006, however, the picture changed dramatically. Suddenly the subprime guys and gals were making more than 35 percent of home loan volume in a huge swath of LA and the Inland Empire. They also started doing big business in Orange County, where many of them were headquartered. Look at the I-5 corridor and especially at Anaheim, Garden Grove and Santa Ana.

By 2007, business was cooling down almost everywhere outside central L.A. and portions of San Bernardino County.

For many Southern Californians, the desert and the San Joaquin Valley are windshield territory — places best crossed at high speed on the way to someplace else. But there’s a remarkable economic story to be told here: These regions are adding new residents by the tens and hundreds of thousands, drawn by cheap housing and new jobs.

Subprime lenders played a big role in financing the valley’s and the desert’s growth. The proof is in the maps.

Watch the spreading blue zone — the tracts where subprime accounted for at least 35 percent of total home loan volume. In 2004, it’s isolated to a few patches in the desert and the southwestern corner of Tulare County in the San Joaquin Valley.

By 2005 the entire valley from Bakersfield north to Stockton is blue. The bluest areas are along State Highway 99, which connects the valley’s urban centers. And subprime is now spreading north to Sacramento and to the farm counties above it.

In 2006 the urban parts of the San Joaquin Valley are solid subprime turf. Today cities in this zone including Merced and Stockton have some of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation. Note too how subprime spread to virtually the entire high desert, from Lancaster and Palmdale in northern L.A. County to Victorville in San Bernardino County.

That was subprime’s peak year. In 2007 the map shows far fewer blue areas, though subprime continues to be common in most of the San Joaquin Valley. The largest blue areas, by the way, are lightly populated tracts — the vicinity of Death Valley National Park in Inyo County on the state line, and the Santa Barbara County back-country.

It appears that their is something coming to California Homeowners that have Counrywide loans. We will find out more today concerning the specifics. We will keep you posted.

Countrywide mortgage pact may be worth $3.5 billion to California loan holders
Bank of America Corp. agrees to nation’s largest mortgage-workout program to settle charges of lending abuse.
An estimated 125,000 Californians who are struggling with risky mortgages from Countrywide Financial Corp. may get their loans modified and payments reduced under a program to be announced today.

In a pact that could save mortgage holders billions of dollars, Countrywide owner Bank of America Corp. has agreed to the nation’s largest loan-modification program to settle charges of lending abuse brought by California and other states.
The program could reduce payments to Countrywide borrowers and provide other benefits to total as much as $8.7 billion nationwide. It would examine nearly 400,000 loans across the nation — about 125,000 of them in California — to see how they could be reworked and made more affordable. That could include switching customers to fixed-rate loans or reducing the interest or principal.
Bank of America said Countrywide mortgage-servicing employees would be trained to carry out the program by Dec. 1 and would then begin reaching out to eligible customers. The plan includes a foreclosure freeze for borrowers who are likely to qualify until Countrywide has determined their eligibility, the bank said.

But officials acknowledged that some borrowers were beyond help and said these customers would need the cooperation of investors who owned the loans. Such assistance was not always forthcoming in the past.

The settlement includes a program for California borrowers who are behind on their Countrywide mortgage payments or are having their homes foreclosed by the lender.

The total value of the benefits could reach $3.5 billion to California homeowners who took out risky, adjustable-rate loans from Countrywide, California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown said.

The program, to be announced today by Brown, applies to mortgages made before this year. It had been endorsed by at least nine states as of Sunday, including California, Florida and Texas, where Countrywide wrote the most loans.

Its central thrust — changing the terms of subprime and other risky loans — was to be applied across the country, even in states that might not accept the overall settlement, California and Bank of America officials said.

“It’s not perfect,” Brown said Sunday, “but we have some money for people who already have been kicked out of their homes, and we have money for people who may get foreclosed on later. And there are some very significant payment reductions for people. This will allow them to stay in their homes.”

According to Brown’s office, the settlement could save borrowers up to $8.7 billion nationwide, nearly all of it through interest rate and principal reductions. There was no word on how much people whose homes had already been foreclosed would receive.

The $8.7-billion estimate assumes that all eligible borrowers participate and that investors in mortgage securities cooperate with the loan workouts.

Those are big ifs, said Robert Gnaizda, general counsel of San Francisco’s Greenlining Institute, a fair-lending advocate. “There’s no way of saying how much borrowers are going to save on this. The talk of $8 billion is pure speculation,” Gnaizda said after reviewing a description of the plan. “All that being said, I believe this is a very important first step.”

The agreement almost certainly would rank as the largest predatory-lending settlement in history, dwarfing the nationwide $484-million settlement with Household Finance Corp. in 2002 and a $325-million settlement with Ameriquest Mortgage Co. in 2006.

Those settlements involved payments to borrowers, however, not loan modifications.

Bank of America officials said the settlement costs would not exceed those anticipated when it acquired Countrywide in July for $2.5 billion in stock.

Although numerous lawsuits and federal investigations continue against Countrywide, ex-Chairman Angelo Mozilo and other former executives, the settlement helps Bank of America shed liability for the aggressive lending that helped trigger the current global financial crisis and left hundreds of thousands of Americans stuck in loans larger than the value of their homes.

Under BofA ownership, Countrywide has stopped making the types of adjustable-rate loans that caused the most problems, officials said.

Countrywide’s prior lending practices put families into loans they couldn’t understand and ultimately couldn’t afford, according to Brown, who said the settlement sought to compensate the borrowers.

According to the agreement, borrowers assisted by the loan workouts would not be precluded from joining private class-action lawsuits against Countrywide or pursuing their own claims.
Barbara Desoer, president of Bank of America’s mortgage and insurance operations, said: “We are confident that together with the attorneys general we have developed a comprehensive program that provides more solutions than ever before to assist troubled borrowers and put them back on the path to sustained home ownership.”

The states of California, Illinois and Florida took the lead in the settlement, said Benjamin Diehl, a California Department of Justice attorney specializing in lending abuse. The three states had sued Countrywide and its subprime unit, Full Spectrum Lending, in June, alleging they maximized short-term profit by deceptively marketing risky loans with low starter rates to borrowers who didn’t understand that their payments would one day “explode.”
The program will first identify customers who have fallen behind on their mortgages by more than 60 days or are likely to do so because of loan features such as rate or payment increases, Diehl said. These customers will be contacted by Countrywide starting Dec. 1.

Various options will be considered for eligible customers, with employees handling the workouts instructed to first consider refinancing into a fixed-rate Federal Housing Administration loan, Diehl said.

The options on subprime mortgages also include keeping the initial rate for five or 10 years, having the borrowers pay interest only and reducing the interest rate to as low as 3.5%, Diehl said.

For pay-option loans, many of which now amount to more than the borrower’s house is worth, the options include writing the principal down to 95% of the home’s current appraised value and lowering the interest rate to 3.5%, he added.

In addition to California, Florida and Texas, the states that signed the settlement are Connecticut, Washington, Arizona, Ohio, Illinois and Iowa.

Brown said he believed most of the investors who owned the loans would accept the modifications rather than foreclosure at this point.

“It’s not exactly what they wanted, but it’s better than default,” he said. “In this environment of people talking about us heading for a depression, I think having a predetermined fixed amount coming in will be attractive to them.”

Countrywide mortgage aid

The total value of the benefits in California could reach $3.5 billion. The plan calls for:

* Loan modifications, mostly through reduced interest payments, and in certain cases reductions of loan balances

* Suspension of foreclosure on delinquent loans while loan modifications are being reviewed

* Waived late fees

* Payments to delinquent borrowers or people whose homes have been foreclosed

* Waived prepayment penalties for borrowers whose loans are modified, paid off or refinanced

* Additional payments to borrowers who can’t afford their monthly payments after loan modifications and who lose their homes to foreclosure in the future

Source: California attorney general’s office

Important Information about Title IV of H.R. 3221 Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008 - HOPE for Homeowners

For many homeowners the dream of owning a home has become a nightmare. An option that has received a lot of attention is the FHA Housing recovery bill of 2008.

Title IV of HR 3221 This program claims to serve approximately 400,000 home owners.

HOPE for Homeowners Program - The bill establishes a new program entitled the HOPE for Homeowners Program. The program will be overseen by a Board made up of the Secretary of HUD, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, and the
Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The Board will have the authority to develop standards within the framework of the legislation.

Eligible Borrowers - Only owner-occupants who are unable to afford their mortgage payments are eligible for the program. No investors or investor properties will qualify. Homeowners must
certify, under penalty of law, that they have not intentionally defaulted on their loan to qualify for the program and must have a mortgage debt to income ratio greater than 31 percent as of March 1, 2008. Lenders must document and verify borrowers’ income with the IRS.

New Loan Amount - The FHA refinancing program will let borrowers who have defaulted on their existing mortgages to refinance into FHA-guaranteed loans. Lenders must write down the principal balance of the loan to no more than 90 percent of the current value (and in some
circumstances less), and put the borrower in a 30-year fixed rate mortgage. Loans up to $550,000 are eligible. FHA is not allowed to charge insurance premiums sufficient to cover the risk of these borrowers, so it will result in a cost to the government, which will be paid for at first by funds from the Housing Trust Fund.

Equity & Appreciation Sharing -In order to avoid a windfall to the borrower created by the new 90 percent loan-to-value FHA-insured mortgage, the borrower must share the newly-created equity and future appreciation equally with FHA. This obligation will continue until the
borrower sells the home or refinances the FHA-insured mortgage. Moreover, the homeowner’s
access to the newly created equity will be phased-in over 5 years.

Existing Subordinate Liens - Before participating in this program, all subordinate liens must be extinguished. This will have to be done through negotiation with the first lien holder.

Qualified Safe Harbor - The legislation provides loan servicers with an incentive to participate in the program by offering a safe harbor against legal liability.

Program Size - The program is authorized to insure up to $300 billion in mortgages and is expected to serve approximately 400,000 homeowners.

Program Sunset - The program will begin October 1, 2008 and sunset on September 30, 2011.

The biggest challenges many folks will find with this program are the strict guidelines for qualifying. It is important that you completely understand this program when assessing your options.

In the borrower qualification guidelines issued by the Department of Housing and Urban Development on July 24, 2008 you will find even more restrictions….Here are some of the highlights:

* Borrower must certify that they have not intentionally defaulted on the eligible morgage or on any other debt (false statement = fine and/or 5 years in prison)
* Current lender must voluntarily forgive balance of existing loan to 90% of current market value.
* No pre-payment penalties can exist
* No subordinate financing (2nd mortgages) can exist. Subordinate lien holders must forgive liability.
* Requires borrowers to share equity and any future appreciation in the value of the property with the Federal Government.

It does seem that this program is a viable option for those that do not plan to ever move or refinance (due to having to pay the Federal Government 50% of all future equity) and can qualify for an FHA loan using full income tax returns, pay stubs and asset documentation.

Loan modification is another option for folks that are looking for temporary to permanent payment relief and even buy some time to figure out what is best for you and your family. This can also be a confusing process due to an increase in loan modification Scams that are beginning to rear their ugly heads in these difficult times.

We have already seen the “tactics” these new loan modification companies are using. It seems that as quickly as sub-prime lenders where going out of business, new loan modification companies are opening up to prey on the folks that they took advantage of the first time! We received a call from a home owner just about ready to either have to list the home for Short Sale or face certain foreclosure asking us about this new “help”. The homeowner was approached by a loan modification program that was supposedly going to get him a loan modification and allow him to stay in his home. The cost $$$, quite expensive, and no guarantee he would qualify. They did tell him that if the loan modification was not possible they would list his home for Short Sale!

Foreclosure notices fell nearly 90% in California with the implementation of state bill 1137 on September 8th. I found a great chart that shows the huge decline in Notice of Defaults and Trustee Sales here in the state of Ca. Here’s the staggering fact! We went from 3k to 4k notices PER Day to just a few hundred PER day…

This is only temporary…

NOD is the first stage of foreclosure after a borrower misses three to four mortgage payments. Notice of Trustee Sale is the second stage of foreclosure that gives the borrower notice their home will be sold at Trustee sale shortly thereafter. Timeline for NTS comes about 120-150 days following the NOD or about 8-10 months after the borrower misses their first payment, depending on the efficiency of the lender. From NTS the home is sold at Trustee Sale in about 14-days or so.

As you can see from the chart below, the week following Sept 6th when the new law was enacted NOD and NTS activity falls off of a cliff, down 90% from the week prior. (data in partnership with Foreclosure Radar)

Notice the day before the law went into effect, the banks sent out two times the number of notices…hmmm. We see data anomalies like this all of the time, especially around end-of-quarter…BANKS!!!

This new law requires the foreclosing entity to perform significant due-diligence ahead of sending out foreclosure notices in the future. What this does, however, is simply postpone the problem a month or so if your looking at this from the lenders point of view.

Now, if you’re a homeowner that’s facing foreclosure….look at it as that extra time you need to figure out how you are going to avoid immanent foreclosure. If loan modification is not an option, it’s time to learn about Short Sales. Banks doing business here in California are being forced to find alternatives to foreclosure.

That is a very good thing for all of us.
Short Sales are becoming more accepted, major lenders have Streamlined the process…can you believe it! Our last Short Sale with Countrywide was a total of 3 weeks from taking the listing to getting approval from their new Short Sale department. Amazing, the lender that used to turn down offers, now has added employees to staff this “Special devision”.

Ok, back to the chart:

This will have a positive effect on the September monthly foreclosure numbers when they are reported the second week of October by Realty Trac and other data providers. Remember, CA makes up roughly 40% of all US foreclosure activity. However, it will make for a dramatic rise in the November numbers once they get caught up and in compliance.
Banks and servicers are doing all they can to quickly comply with the law and resume sending NOD’s and NTS’. These notices are required by law before their take back their collateral so rest assured, they did not want to stop sending these out and being on record. When they begin to stream out again we will know in real time.

Kris and I live in the “Inland Empire”; one of the hardest hit areas of the country. Being Real Estate Agents, our decision to become Short Sale experts was an easy one. Our lives are touched daily with calls from people that are loosing their homes. Using everything we’ve learned during our training and experiences that we deal with daily….trying to help people that truly want to avoid foreclosure…however, nothing to date has hit me like this news.

As of 9/1/2008 Bank of America has implemented new criteria for short sale acceptance. The criteria states that Bank of America will accept no less than a 10% payoff of a debt balance being charged off as collectible. The criteria also states that Realtor commissions shall not exceed 4%.
Here’s proof BofA is sticking to the new criteria…
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What’s going on in America? The state of California passed a bill that becomes effective on or around September 8th SB1137 ordering all lenders doing business here in California to find alternatives to foreclosure
sb-1137-became-effective-july-8th-as-an-urgency-measure1

Bank of America beat the law makers here in California by 8 days! Their new criteria became effective September 1, 2008.

A piece of information that we’ve learned over the past year; when dealing with mortgage lenders that hold the first lien on a property…most if not all, allow only 3% of the sales price to go to subordinates, some cap at a maximum pay-off of $1000. Way to go BofA, do you share this decision making information with shareholder? The shareholders that will soon feel sharp declines in stock prices…due to this stupid “un-thought” process

I’ve found some fuel to add to this fire that BofA has started and will most likely let burn ’till it hurts many.

Foreclosures accelerated to the fastest pace in almost three decades during the second quarter as interest rates increased and home values fell, prompting more Americans to walk away from homes they couldn’t refinance or sell.

New foreclosures increased to 1.19 percent, rising above 1 percent for the first time in the survey’s 29 years, the Mortgage Bankers Association said in a report today. The total inventory of homes in foreclosure reached 2.75 percent, almost tripling since the five-year housing boom ended in 2005. The share of loans with one or more payments overdue rose to a seasonally adjusted 6.41 percent of all mortgages, an all-time high, from 6.35 percent in the first quarter.

Tumbling home prices are making it difficult for even the most creditworthy owners with adjustable-rate mortgages to sell or get a new loan as their financing costs rise, said Jay Brinkmann, MBA’s chief economist. Prime ARMs accounted for 23 percent of new foreclosures and subprime ARMs were 36 percent, he said.

“People chose the lowest payment option to get into some of the very expensive housing markets and now that prices are coming way down, they can’t sell and they can’t afford the higher payments,” Brinkmann said in an interview. The unadjusted rate for new foreclosures was 1.08 percent, also a record, he said.

Foreclosures started on prime mortgages rose to 0.67 percent from 0.54 percent and the foreclosure inventory increased to 1.42 percent from 1.22 percent, the report said. The share of seriously delinquent prime mortgages was 2.35 percent, up from 1.99 percent.

Existing home sales fell to a 10-year low in the second quarter and the median price for a single-family house dropped 7.6 percent, according to the National Association of Realtors in Chicago.

Sales of previously owned homes rose 3.1 percent in July to an annualized pace of 5 million, boosted by foreclosures that accounted for about a third of all transactions, the National Association of Realtors said in an Aug. 25 report.

Some content from Bloomberg.com

I was really hoping that I had a nightmare last night, but after opening my emails this morning….It really happened! Yesterday was a perplexing day in our world of Short Sales.
The call we received from a family in the midst of a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy was not uncommon. A sale date set for the home less than 2 weeks away. We have been blessed in getting offers quickly and stopping trustee sale dates just days before the sale.
This Short Sale started out like all others….daily calls to the lender. AHMSI is the first mortgage holder, previously Option One. It took us about 7 days to have the trustee sale canceled. Although this came with conditions, typical items that lenders cover on short sales were declined as well as a huge cut in the Realtor commissions; they would only pay a total of 4%. Remember, the home was going to come back to them at foreclosure….according to the United States Bankruptcy Courts. The cost associated to take a home back at foreclosure is near $70,000 plus…!
Ok, no matter, we just want to make sure this property does not end up as a foreclosure. Next steps were to talk to the second mortgage holder, Bank of America. Their process seemed like it would be a no brainer. They actually have a recording that gives step by step instructions, and a timeline of what to expect and when. Anyone watch Twilight Zone? Remember the episode where everyone on the planet looked like a mutant pig…except one beautiful woman? They ended up sending her to another planet because she was so “different”…
Take that and imagine the entire team of home retention of Bank Of America, and I’m not talking about the beautiful woman! Get this, after days of talking to drones I finally made it to the supervisor of Home Retention, Veronica Vira. Get this…I asked her if she could help us with getting the lien released on this property as we had an offer that was accepted by the first lien holder, who by the way was going to offer a $1000 to BofA. Veronica proceeds to tell me this loan has already been charged off due to the bankruptcy. Once again, I explained that the owners of the home are trying to avoid a foreclosure and we had an offer to SELL the home, and just needed BofA to release the lien. Are you ready for this??? Veronica says and I quote “We are not going to release the lien for a $1000; do you know how much is owed on this”? Perplexed…I reminded her that she had just told me that the debt had been charged off, and with accepting this $1000 BofA was actually going to net more than if they charged it off….right????
End of conversation with Veronica, she held fast on BofA’s policy. Today via fax we received a lovely letter declining to accept the $1000 offer from AHMSI. (I have posted the letter for all to see, minus the client information of course).
What a very sad and unacceptable scenario of how lenders are “Pretending to Do Business”
I have to believe that these “temporary” employees are not accountable to higher management. From my experience dealing with Short Sale lenders over the past year, most negotiators handling these files do not hang around long enough to learn the process…if there is a process in place. I’m guessing they are paid hourly, with no incentive, or repercussion regarding their workload and the ultimate outcome of Short Sale versus Foreclosure….
There are real casualties here; the family that is going to suffer a foreclosure for years and our economy. Not accepting fair market value offers, choosing to spend the money to let the property be foreclosed on is beyond frustrating! These same idiots are now going to have to pay a Realtor to get the home ready for sale and pay them commissions….and I guarantee that the sale price 6 months from now when the home goes back to market will be LESS than the offer that was declined.
Oh, and we are not giving up that easy, we will work our way up the food chain at Bank of America. Someone has got to have a brain…..
State Bill 1137 is just around the corner, the one that is trying to help California put a stop or at least slow down foreclosures…only time will tell.

“Twilight Zone….” They need to go to the planet where people are like them!
bofadecline