The following information is best received understanding a few basic suggestions:
Your previous knowledge of short sales will be applicable but may take on different meaning and understanding after this training from the lenses of an SSAA professional.
Processing short sales can be approached thinking logically, but may not necessarily yield logical results from short sale lenders and investors.
Don’t get frustrated when things don’t seem to make a whole lot of sense during the short sale process. The banks’ loss mitigation departments have been bombarded with foreclosure alternative requests at an unprecedented rate for the past 3 years and most of them are doing all they can to catch up. Unfortunately, the majority of customer service representatives you will be questioning to receive information know very little about the short sale process and can only read to you internal notes from the negotiator for status updates. There are even some banks that refuse to give out their negotiators’ phone numbers due to the frequency of incoming calls they receive on a daily basis from sellers and their listing agents. We’ll teach you how to use the banks’ systems in your sellers’ favor and even show you a few tricks of the trade to work through the lenders’ inefficiencies.
No two snowflakes share the same shape. Add that concept to your new perspective on short sale processing: no two files are the same! Each short sale is unique in its own way. Every file has it’s unique differences in seller hardship, buyer pre-approval, offer-to-BPO ratios, and so forth. Short sale lenders are no different; no two lenders are the same. Bank of America uses an online application to filter through their short sale offers, Chase’s Authorization to Release Information form requires more information than all of the other lenders, and Select Portfolio Servicing can approve your short sale in 3 weeks without ever speaking to a negotiator.
In addition to that, no two short sale files are the same in the eyes of the lender. That means even though you are following the same process you followed on a previous short sale with the same lender, it may very well seem as if you are learning their process all over again. It is rare to find mortgages with equal loan types. Maybe the first deal you worked was a conventional loan and this one has an adjustable rate and mortgage insurance. Maybe the last one was insured by FHA and this one is owned by Fannie Mae.
Be prepared to think on your feet! Simply “knowing” a lot about short sales will not make you a certified SSAA professional. The key to becoming a true SSAA Professional is determined by your experience successfully processing short sales. Research and reading will be necessary, but it’s the application of the skills you are reading about and listening to that will set you apart from the rest.
It is important to understand what is meant by an “investor” and a “servicer” during the short sale process. Consider the following example:
A prospective homebuyer goes to their neighborhood bank – Wells Fargo – to pre-qualify for a loan. In our example, they qualify for a 30-year $200,000 loan at 3.5% interest. They select a property, do their inspections and arrive at the closing table ready to receive the keys to their new home. Where does the closing attorney or escrow officer get the money to pay the seller? In most cases—and in our example—the money will be sent to the title company from Wells Fargo, or whatever bank qualified the buyer for the loan. At that point, the loan is sold on the secondary market so that the servicer replenishes their funds to originate more loans in the future. The loan is grouped together with loans with similar terms into portfolios and sold to investors.
In most cases, the servicer will mail the homeowner a letter notifying them their loan is owned by a new investor. All of their loan terms remain the same and their original lender’s servicing rights are retained.
Visit: Short Sale Association of America
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