Short Sale With Countrywide

Today is day 11. Since weekends don't count. at best it will be day 13 on Monday. I have already been called by the buyers several times asking me why it is taking so long. While I call them daily to let them know I have not heard. their impatience with the process is taking it's toll. I did warn them and was very detailed regarding the process and likely lengthy process. I also reminded them that they could wait weeks and the final answer would be no or somebdy else could come along at any time and make a better offer. While I did not discourage them to make the offer, they are discouraged.

It's not just Countrywide. A big part of the current problem is the way the banking industry functions. I was recently sent a survey by a group that is made up of lenders & banks about the foreclosure / short sale possess.

They were “proud” of the fact they were now trying to get responses down to one or two weeks.

They either have no idea that they are loosing millions to billions because they simply can’t make a timely decision or just don’t care I can’t tell which. It seems they would rather loose hundreds of thousands on a loan then tens of thousands.

Home buyers that I have been working with do not want to wait weeks for a response. They are anxious after a day or two and yes Mr. or Ms. Lender weekends do count. Until the lenders who are stuck holding the bag on these bad loans understand that time is of the essence, they are going to keep loosing more money. While the would-be buyers move on to other available properties.

I agree with you Dan.  About 1/3 of my city's listings are short sale listings that end up becoming REOs.  The bank then lists them 100K under what they were listed for as a short sale.  If they would just approve them they could save everyone a huge headache.  I would love to get an inside job at one of these banks just to see what the heck is really going on.

Marci I doubt that anyone, least of all the shareholders, know whats going on at the banks these days.

hi Tonja - my partner & I put an offer ona short sale back at the end of Jan..  The listing agent got word to hold on from CW's mortigage insurer about 3wks ago that we were close, so tell buyer to hold on. On Sat (6 wks) later CW accepted -minus closing cost req. & we have 30 days to close.  I noticed the paperwork has the $$$ being wired to BOA. :-)

The whole thing that I don't think a lot of people understand is that while we may hold the servicing rights we don't necessarily have that loan.  There are always multiple things to go through. 

EL, the buyers don’t care who has what. If you are marketing a property you had best be able to make a decision quickly. If you are in that end of the business you should have seen the results of indecision. Sending properties needlessly to sheriff’s sale only costs you more time & money. It hurts neighborhood value and the LTV of the rest of the paper in the area. You all need to figure that out soon before things get worse for all of us.

I have a short sale with B of A that has dragged on over 8 months. They're impossible to get a hold of and they keep delaying. My seller is happy though, he's been there for 8 months mortgage free and they keep staying the foreclosure because it's their fault. We've had 3 buyers back out, but we have back up contracts.

mean while BOA looses more $$$ on the deal because they can't get thier act together. wonder why the stock price is where it is?

Day 22 and no word.

Marci...a lot of it simply has to do with when the books have to look a certain way. Nothing more, nothing less.

So, you are saying it's better for the books to have a 200-300K deficit instead of a 100K deficit?  Houses that sold for 400 a couple years ago are now selling as REOs in the low 100s.  If they would have approved short sales last summer, they would have been much better off.

Can anyone tell me if Countrywide is telling their customers that they must be late first?

I was the seller on a CW short sale that closed on March 5. The offer was submitted on Dec 20. We were not late at the the time the offer was submitted, but then we didn't make another mtg payment because we were moving out of state anyway due to a job transfer.

Countrywide is now part of BofA and is in the procees of being absorbed by them.  The real problem with getting these short sales through is not lender stupidity (though that does come into play), but the bureaucratic inertia as expressed by ELender.

Almost any bank will require you to be 30 days late before talking to you about a short sale. If they don't think you're going to foreclose, why would they allow you to sell. A short sale is a way for the bank to not have to take the home as REO, if you're going to continue making payments, they don't need to worry about it.

April 8 2008 we finally are told yes to the short sale. The buyer is ecstatic and the seller is pissed. We found another home and are under contract as of April 5. Sadly for the seller we gave them until April 4 to answer. They cannot understand why we moved on and their agent has called memultiple times trying to get us back. In fariness to the seller, we did contact their agent several times immediately prior to the deadline and let them know we had found something else and reminded them of the epiration date. The buyer really liked the home but decided he did not want to play games and is just as happy with this pain free option.

i've heard that tune before JK. It's too bad that the share holders of the bank don't speak up about these needless losses.

I feel bad for the seller. The buyer (my client) is fine, but really the seller is the one who might have had a way out. The offer was $260K on a $270K list too. The Buyer bought another for $270K and would have paid full but Countrywide would not even respond with a counter. Only thing we ever heard was, "We're looking into it" or other variables. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

A recent, (and repeat) client had me submit an offer on an investment property that has sat for two years.  We offered a fair, but low price.  The responce was that they were begining to do repairs to the property and would not consider an offer until after the repairs were complete.

The repairs included, re-roofing part of the home, finishing the siding and installing one window.  My buyer was willing to purchase the property as-is! potentially saving the bank the construction costs. 

Instead of investing in bank's I may burry my cash in coffee cans.  Besides it will make the neighbors suspisions! :)

What an interesting conversation you are having here!

There are plenty of issues with every lender, every deal, every situation.

The one constant is change.

I wanted to share the fact that we have a Short Sale Support Group over on LinkedIn.  It's moderated, but we allow everyone.  Think of this LinkedIn Group as a nationwide Rolodex of Short Sale Professionals.   Please no scammers or Investment Guru's.

Here's the direct link to the group:

http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/76810/725700607CB9

We all believe, by working together we can accomplish so much more.

Oh, and denis - burying cans in your background?  LOL!

I love the fact that everyone just thinks you ought to have answers overnight and that should be the norm.  Do you know how many calls have been coming and how many companies are involved with the process?  I had heard a number some time ago that we are getting several thousand inquiries a week.  There are other investors involved as I had alluded to before as alot of loans that we are thought to own, we are just the servicing lender.  There are legal issues, tax implications, mortgage insurance companies involved, sometimes several investors...the list goes on.

Countrywide/B of A seem to be the worst. With a lot of lenders you can get a response in a couple weeks. I've yet to see B of A respond in less than a month. The legal issues, tax implications, etc are there with foreclosures as well.

We are dealing with plenty of them in and out in a couple of weeks...

My understand that Countrywide receives near 300 short sale packets PER DAY.   It takes up to 30 days just to get the packet into their system and another 30 days to assign the case and have it reviewed.  After this period, you should start to hear from them.  For any Countrywide client I receive,  I definately explain the whole process to them first. 

I have been dealing with Wells Fargo of late on two separate issues.  I pulled a friend/client out of foreclosure the day OF sale.  It took 23 days to get a response from Wells Fargo that they would talk to me.  It took over 12 faxes to them to get the documetation they insisted we never sent.  They gave me the first and last name of the fellow to talk to.  My friend called and then phoned me back that he was out of town until the 11th (date of her sale date), and I had a lightbulb go off.  I emailed him an attachment, hoping that by guessing his email address was his first name, with a dot in the middle, and his last name, at wellsfargo.com .  It was.  Since he was out of the office, I received his out of office reply with the contact people in it.  I emailed them all the documentation.  Then, she and I tag teamed the phone numbers we received.  Literally a full week on the phone, no, I am not getting compensated, I am helping a friend save her home, and we did it!=)  Now, she is dealing with the loss mitigation team to pull her out of the situation into a payment plan.   We were going to try to refi her, however, no one would touch her until she went into a loss mitigation payment plan.  I won't bore you with the extenuating circumstances.  HOWEVER, she is currently at 8.5% on her FHA, and Wells won't streamline the loan to a lower interest rate as part of the loss mitigation.  I would think this would be no brainer to make it a better loan for all parties involved?