Short Sale Horror Story ~ We closed after months! But was it all worth it?

I have done a number of short sales in my career, and successfully I might add as well.  However it is a very long and grueling process.  We as Realtos know that.  I have a banner above my desk that says 

"THEY JUST DON'T CARE!

And typically, the seller's lender does not care.  It just does not matter.  Who cares that you sent that document to them six times.  They don't have it and you will need to send it again, and it takes 48 hours for us to find out if we have received that fax.  If you call US, we will see if we have it, unless we cut you off and hang up on you because we have hundreds of short sales we are working on and we really do not care if you are simply wasting your time.  This is the lender's attitude.

This was originally an FHA loan when I sold it to this seller in 2009. For this reason, we could not use EQUATOR on this short sale.

So I just completed another long short sale.  The seller was my worst enemy again.  The Wells Fargo was his lender, and they were horrific, however the seller was worse.   I have found that sellers want to stick their heads in the sand and pretend they are not in default.  It is the bank's fault the seller did not pay their mortgage.  It is the bank's fault that the Sheriff is pestering them.  So not answering questions and providing information is the normal mode for a seller in default.  

So I am just lucky the seller has chosen me to list their house for sale in a short sale.  AM I?

This past summer the grass was so tall, one agent told me the weeds were taller than she was at the house.  The neighbors would call me (MY NUMBER IS ON THE SIGN IN THE FRONT YARD AND THE SELLER HAS VACATED) to complain about the weeds and tall grass and falling fences and tree limbs.

Then the Township began calling me to threaten fines about tall grass.

THen one day an agent was at the house to show it and could not get in the door.  After hard work, I learned that Wells Fargo reserves the right to "SECURE" the property if it is vacant.   So my $130 electronic lock box disappeared, a new door knob was in place, and we could not get in any more.  Yes, we got past that, Property preservation at Wells mailed me a key, but the good news was they were now cutting the grass.

Of course time marched on and we found a buyer and cold weather came.  Of course there was no electricity and along came the Hurricane last Labor Day, which filled the basement with water aparantly, and then we grew mold.  

Finally after about 7 months we got approved for the short sale and also for the agreement of sale.  But now the buyer had to change his financing to a 203K loan, so he would have enough money to treat the home for MOLD, since Wells would not pay a penney to fix it.  It was not their fault the seller did not pay the electric bill.

Somehow, we got by all that and we went to settlement this week.  Wells reserves the right always in the ATP, the Agreement to Participate, that they can deduct " charges from the $1,000 they promised to pay the seller for their cooperation in the short sale process.  So at the last minute, when you have to send the final HUD to Wells fargo within 48 hours of closing, Wells deducts from the final fee to the seller.

Then again the seller growls and is not happy once again.  IT is all the bank's fault of course he said.

So at the end of the day, we have a buyer in this distressed property that will give it new life.  

I feel good that my HUNDREDS of hours I spent keeping my seller out of FORECLOSURE, was worth it.  

Was it worth it financially to me though?  Clearly no.

I probably earned less than 10 cents per hour in this project.  And more importantly while I was concentrating on the short sale, other new clients slipped away to other Realtors.

So I have learned that I have done my last short sale as a REaltor.  We have a service called Short Sale Solutions with my Broker.  It is  a free service to all parties.  They do all the work on the short sale approval and I just follow to see that everyone is getting the information to the right people that need it.

And through this process, I was successful for getting the seller forgiven for $80,000 in shortfall, plus $17,000 in closing costs, and I have a seller that did not even say thank you.  But I knew that was going to to be the case.