Remember a few years back when the banks kept pushing and pushing to enter real estate? We legislated this away, but look at what's really happening now.

In heavy foreclosure areas, banks are the king of the hill. They don't write counteroffers, they issue ultimatums.  They work in their own world, on their own timetable, and do exactly what they please. Rules come and go.

In the under $300K market here, we've got 80% of the inventory either REO or short sales, so we deal with banks all the time. They have effectively "taken over" real estate in this part of the world.

Judging by the way they do business, we have hard evidence now, and it's proof positive that banks should never be allowed to do real estate.