A Year Late and $60,000 Short... Or How To Try To Close A Short Sale in Only 548 Days!

Hi All,

Friday should have been a great day.  It really should have been.  Not just for me but for my client and also for another agent and their client's as well.  But it wasn't and here's why.  I took a listing for a condo in Ontario, CA in February 2008.  It was, is, and remains a Short Sale. And it is getting "shorter" by the minute. 

A brief recap for those who don't remember my speaking about this transaction before.  (And really, why would you since I started babbling about it when Barack Obama was still just a Senator from Chicago and the Octomom only had six kids.) I listed this home in February 2008, got our first offer in March, '08, the lender got an appraisal that wasn't worth the ink it was printed with let alone the paper it was written on which killed that deal.  Then, we got another offer in April '08 which was scuttled by the lender taking 6 months to respond (after bringing the old appraisal up again and making me pay for a new BPO, which I of course did despite the fact that it turned out they had done a BPO of their own but didn't remember it) so we lost 'um. 

We next received an offer which really was low at the time (but higher than the current value is now by some $40K) so they didn't respond... We then received another offer identical to the second offer which we again... wait for it... wait for it... Lost because the lender again took to long to respond. Bringing us up to date... err or rather to March '09 when we received our most recent offer. 

We should have been good to go here... astonishingly it was the highest valued offer to date and the buyer's said they were in it for the long haul... A slam dunk, right?  Well, the lender again took their own sweet time to respond and the value has continued to descend (shocking, I know), in fact it has deflated to the point that when the bank got yet another BPO done it came in at $147,500.  And the buyer's appraisal came in at that pricepoint as well. 

So, I dutifully submitted the revised HUD 1 and we were off to the races yet again.  That was back in May and today we FINALLY got approval for the sale.  But, here's the kicker, the approval is for the offer submitted on behalf of a different and long gone buyer ONE YEAR AGO!   (And we wonder why we are in the financial mess we are in... but as usual, I digress)

I am pretty much at my wits end and would consider pulling my hair out strand by strand, but I have a whole lot of hair and I don't have that much time so... I got on the phone and called the negotiator to let her know about the little "problem" we were now facing, namely that the payoff amount (which was accurate way back when) was $40,000 over the current market value and it was based upon the WRONG DANGED HUD1!

I know they are busy, I know their desks are piled higher than straw in the story Rumplestiltskin, and I know that they have to serve many masters, but I really don't think it is asking too much to read something like the  date on the top of a document now and then.  My negotiator couldn't have been nicer (helpfully unhelpful is how I have always described them :-) and she said she was training new people and thought they might be getting the files messed up... Um... Ya think?  Geez, I even spoke... personally spoke, to one of her assistants before the offending document was issued and we went over the details of the deal to make sure they had all that they needed.  Lot of good that did, I should have just talked to my cat about the deal, it would have been about as useful and a whole lot more fulfilling. 

I shall keep you posted as to the outcome here.  I tend to believe that Realtor is a synonym for optimist and that is what I am to the core so I still have faith, hope and and undying need to believe that it will all work out in the end.  The entire kit and caboodle has been tossed back into the hopper and we are awaiting the result.  This should be interesting to say the least...

Take care all, help lots of people and have a wonderful day!

Tisza