I finally broke down and responded to an automated Bank of America email survey. The email was titled "Help Us Improve Our Process." I received the email because one of my Destin short sales was declined in Equator. Why? Our seller was a day late getting us newly requested documents. We had to re-initiate the short sale a few days later. It's seems like a bunch of "make work", but that is what we do. Work for the short sale lender.
Overall, Bank of America does a pretty good job. They are one of my top short sale lenders to work with, along with BB&T and PNC. They are fairly quick to respond, and if they don't, you can always use the Twitter Escalation team (call their Social Media team), with whom I've had fabulous results.
If one of Bank of America's inconsistent deadlines for returning documents is not met by a day or so, they will close your file. Or as they love to say "YOUR FILE WILL BE DECLINED." They love using that word - "Declined". Why don't they use something else, like ''Denied! Killed! Trashed! Deleted'?" I suppose "Declined" is supposed to sound ominous and threatening. I wonder why Bank of America does this? I cannot imagine telling one of MY CLIENTS, that if he didn't send me a copy of his home survey in 72 hours I would CANCEL his contract and his sale would be DECLINED.
Some negotiators give a fair amount of time for new documents to be returned, some demand "within 48 hours", with no regard whether it's a Friday evening or Saturday at 1:00 p.m.. I've had that demand, and when asking for a further update, after scrambling over a weekend to get a document, the negotiator disappears for a week or more. OK, so then what was the rush?
Maybe they like to keep their file count down to save their negotiators time from checking on extra "dormant" files. But let's look at the big picture. It seems it takes twice as much effort on their part and OUR part to "re-open" a file. Then they have to re-assign a negotiator and request all the same documents. We have to re-upload the same initial documents. Just give it a few more days, dude.
I commented on the survey: "Do not treat the real estate agent as an employee. They are not employees of Bank of America. I don't work for your company. I am trying to help someone out with a short sale, basically gratis. We do the best we can to respond to every request, which are put forth as "demands" without politeness, or we are threatened dismissively with "your file will be DECLINED". Is this appropriate and customer-service related language to use to real estate agent, with whom I am sure you want future business? You do, don't you? Use some common sense." Allow a "human amount" of time for a new request to be fulfilled.
It's Wendy!
Feel free to email or call me if you wish to discuss this further. Wendy Rulnick 850-650-7883 or itswendy@rulnickrealty.com
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