Rumors of Bank of America’s New Short Sale Program

Rumors of Bank of America’s New Short Sale Program

The other day I had the opportunity to participate in a meeting hosted by a Vice President from Bank of America who was charged with the assignment of sharing information about the Bank of America Equator System, Short Sales, REOs and Loss Mitigation.

Not much time was spent talking about how to use the Equator system. With so many online Bank of America Equator Tutorials available, the participants in the meeting really did not want to talk about Equator. They wanted to talk about the latest trends in loss mitigation. So, the meeting subject matter veered off topic at the time.

One question that arose was about the purported HPO (fast track) program for Bank of America short sales. I perked up at that point. I have heard through the rumor mill that Bank of America was going to begin processing short sales using a fast track program—much like the one currently in use in many cities throughout the United States by Wachovia Bank.

In fact, after I first read about this program in many Realtor® blog posts, I myself wanted to hear if this famed program was real—and I wanted to hear straight from the source. I called many of my contacts at Bank of America and nobody could corroborate the information shared in those blog posts. I also used Google to see if I could find any news articles with quotes from sources at Bank of America that could verify what I read in the Realtor® posts. However, I could find nothing to corroborate those stories (originally reported in August of this year).

So, I was eager to hear our presenter’s response to the question about this alleged fast track (HPO) program. Our presenter said that while the idea of a fast track short sale program has been on the table for some time, it is currently not a reality. The reality of the matter is this: Wachovia is able to offer this program only because they own and service their own notes. In situations where they do not service the note, Wachovia cannot offer the fast track program.

Bank of America services notes for over 200 investors. As such, they do not have the authority to make snap decisions and approve short sales at the drop of a hat. For this very reason, they are not able to offer a fast track program at this time.

So, for those of you who are waiting on the fence for the new Bank of America short sale program and for those of you who are not working short sales until all banks have a fast track program, it simply may not happen. So, please do yourself a favor and get off the fence and get to work!

Oh… and don’t believe everything you read!