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Short Sales With Countrywide* Important News Bulletin* UPDATED

If you are in the process of a short sale with Countrywide here is some Important News For You!

Our in house attorney was just given written notice that Countrywide's Short Sale and Foreclosure departments have just shut down operations temporarily for 20 days for restructuring. On Countrywide's time table that probably means 30 days!

They will not be returning your phone calls, they will not be entering data into their computer system, the negotiators will not be calling back, new BPO's will not be ordered. Business as usual is not happening right now. Their snail pace just became a standstill.

Business as usual has stopped for this month as of April 2, 2008. If you have a sale date for a foreclosure it will move forward. CW contracts out to outside attorneys and they are doing business as usual so don't think that anything that has been outsourced is not going to happen.

It is our feeling that the FBI found something. A judge just ruled that there is cause to further a DOJ investigation regarding Bankruptcy cases. What goes around comes around and maybe this is pay back day for Countrywide's dishonest dealings and truth in lending violations.

Don't be surprised if the next news is that Countrywide files for bankruptcy. Then they will get some sort of bailout like Chrysler did.

So what now of your files that are with Countrywide? Well, since Countrywide is the servicer for note holders it is the legal obligation of the note holders to continue to service their customers. You will need to go directly to the note holder and ask them what they intend to do with these files in the meantime. Some of them will hire new servicers.

If you are a seller who has to do a short sale you need to have an agent on your side that knows how to do short sales, that has an attorney on staff or in house that knows how to do foreclosure defense and the support staff to handle the phone calls that will be required to be made on your behalf.

Make sure you ask the agents you interview if they know how to do short sales and if they have successfully closed any short sales. These is not the time to hire Aunt Harriet to list your property as a short sale!

If you want us to refer an experienced short sale agent in your area please call Nestor Gasset or Katerina Gasset at 561-753-0135 or toll free at 800-444-3316.

To learn more about short sales you can read this post which links to an entire series on short sales for both sellers and buyers.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, Loxahatchee, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida. We are accepting referrals.

Visit our profile to find out more about our services. Call us today at 561.753.0135 or Toll Free 800.444.3316. Contact us by email if you prefer by clicking on email me on the right side of this page under our profile.

To view all the Wellington Florida Luxury Homes For Sale Click here and then click on Search For Homes We know Palm Beach County and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your Wellington Home or Land ; call us today.

Disclaimer:The information provided herein is supplied by several sources and is subject to change without notice. Wellington Homes Blog does not guarantee or is any way responsible for its accuracy, and provides said information without warranties of any kind, either express or implied. Entries on Wellington Homes Blog represent the opinions and ideas of the author(s). Wellington Homes Blog does not express the views of International Properties and Investments, Inc or those of the broker.

P.S. If you are listing your home as a short sale in Palm Beach County Florida make sure you hire an agent who knows how to do short sales and has the experience to get the job done. We are doing successful short sale packages. Call us at 561-753-0135 to find out more about Palm Beach County Short Sales.

Posted by Nestor & Katerina Gasset Realtors® Wellington Florida Luxury Homes on 04/04/2008 10:03 PM

Comments (35)

short sales in palm beach county florida, short sales, short sales in wellington florida, countrywide short sales

Originally posted at: South Florida Real Estate and...: Short Sales With Countrywide* Important News Bulletin* *UPDATED*

This post has been included in Florida Information Palm Beach County, FL Information Wellington, FL Information
Post is included in group: Sharing Information of Short Sales

35 Comments on Short Sales With Countrywide* Important News Bulletin* *UPDATED*

APR

2008

Katerina, thank you for the heads up. Guess we can really stop marketing some of the listings out here now. FBI shouldn't have a problem digging anything up on the conversions from ARM to ARM with no benefit.

From what I was told with my inside negotiator out in Simi Valley is that the company is singling out short sale negotiators from the loss mit people to streamline their process. Since they have to be the only compnay with out their stuff together. For BPO's to be ordered you do not have to have a negotiator assigned, however they will no longer service accounts until a contract and a valid one is written on the file. I received similar information but not quite the same I reading above. I guess we will see how it plays out the next few weeks.

What a mess! Thanks for the update. I have a potential short sale listing with CW..it should be interesting.

Katerina--Since I don't deal with short sales much AT ALL--I'm going to ask a question that will elicit a 'blonde comment' I'm sure!--Are they taking the 20-day re-org time to make changes necessary to go under the BofA umbrella? I know I've heard news here that they're working on a massive restructuring in preparation for the final purchase of Countrywide but, not sure that this would be affecting your short sale negotiators.

APR

2008

Katerina, this is interesting. I have not heard any rumors concerning your post. The timing in connection with the judges decision to allow the DOJ to continue thier investigation is suspious. AJ

Katerina ~~ It is so upsetting that all these big companies operate making their CEOs rich. They get all the tax breaks they possibly can. They set rules that work for them. They charge high fees to their customers.

Look at the CEOs of the oil companies testifying before congress: they have an ego and an attitude, how do we dare to question their actions?!

Katerina, I have another short sale inwhich I am the buyer. This has been in effect for about 10 days now that I know of.

HI Karerina

We have a couple of shorts bnut not with Countrywide. good info as we haven't had anything passed along to us

Mark- Oh, we work for our sellers and we still market our short sales that are with countrywide, because Countrywide is a servicer and sells their notes, the process then falls on the note holder. That is who is ultimately responsible and they must tell us what they plan to do with the notes in the meantime. Some of them will fire Countrywide and hire another servicer.

Heather- We have never had a file accepted without an offer on it with any company. We have been able to get a file started such as having our authorization letter placed in their system and getting the specific details of each lenders' short sale package requirements. But BPO's are not ordered until there is an offer on the table.

This post was about a letter that Countrywide sent to our attorney. However, even this week, our negotiator called us on a file we are trying to save from foreclosure. So each of us may be experiencing different responses, even more validity to my statement of their incompetence! Thanks for sharing. Katerina

Monika- Good luck, they are the worst. But with tenacity and patience, drive and a vigilant resolve you will prevail for the best interest of your seller.

Debe- The BofA takeover is being challenged. CW says they are buying them too cheap. The Feds will have to hear the arguments. 4 Billion will hurt CW, they say. This has nothing to do with the BofA thing.

CW is in big trouble with the FBI, the DOJ and many other woes including incompetence. The letter just said that they are not working on any files for the next 20 days to restructure. A couple of weeks ago, their computers were down for 2 days, the same days the FBI was there. Could there be a correlation? I don't know, we can only speculate until it all comes out in the open. Some people are going down.That is what happens when greed gets in the way of common decency.

Alan- I could not find anything online anywhere and I searched for 2 hours before writing this post. I am only going on the letter our attorney received from CW. But is does smell funny.

Marzena- It is when they get corrupt and start thinking they are above the law- then they have crossed the line. I have no problem with CEO's making lots of money and get paid for performance. But I am not a Corporate crooney and never will be. I don't work for employers. I am an entrepreneur and have chosen to always own my own companies. If someone chooses to work for corporate America, well, that is their choice and thus, they either play the game or get out. Big Corps will start turning to consultants and outsource more and more, it is time for the people to have a different mindset. The days of working 40 years for a gold watch are over. We are entering into a different paradigm and you will begin to see the demise of corporations as they are today.

Frank- We have not had this problem even last week. It was just the last couple of days where customer service was telling us that they could not reach or get an answer back from our negotiator. Good luck and I just hope the listing agent knows how to do the short sale!

Anne and Eddie- Good luck with your short sales. You are in Arizona and there the short sales are done differently than here. CW had always been aggressive to get your money and incompetent to resolve issues.

Katerina, thanks for this important update. You are right about what goes around comes around. I just feel for the poor people who are caught up in trying to clean up their situations with these clowns.

This is great to know.

Patricia- We meet with alot of these people and while there are some that are truly been misinformed and taken advantage of by CW and others mostly in this area this is not the case. I do not feel sorry for the landscaper who makes 30K a year buying a million dollar house and then can't pay his mortgage. First, he chose to lie, that was his own decision. No one twisted his arm. Second he never should have bought that house and even he knows that. When I ask him what in the world was he thinking! He just said he was going to flip it, well, he got caught, this is greed pure and simple, this is living beyond your means, this is irresponsible behavior. Shame on him, shame on the lender for letting it go through and shame on the agent who sold it to him! We said no to these people and we lost business but we sleep well at night!

Sandra- Thank you for coming to read my blog!

APR

2008

Katerina... just a quick question because this post was a tad confusing and I already had one agent make it sound like Countrywide as a whole is shutting down. Is this just their loss mitigation side of things? Handling REO's/foreclosures? Or... Countrywide as a whole, everything is being shut down?

In all honesty, no matter what the answer is, I think this needs to be mentioned in this post. Because I am getting feedback now from a few agents that read your blog and are under the impression that the company as a whole has shut down for 30 days... thanks

Thanks Katerina.... but the next news? just speculation... if that was the case, I said they should have done that a year ago. But maybe the CEO is holding out, hoping there will be another taker or a miracle... ;o)

Jeff- I went back and updated my post. I will ask our attorney who exactly the letter was speaking about. I did change it to reflect the short sale and foreclosure departments. It also does not mean that foreclosures stopped, because anything that is with outside attorneys will continue on. So I also made that clear. Sorry about the confusion. I will know more tomorrow when we reach our inside source.

Jeff- I think, just speculation, that they plan for the chapter 11 protection and then a Chrysler type bail out.

Katerina, thanks for keeping us in the know here on AR. I'm sooooo glad I just closed on a Countrywide short sale a week ago - looks like I got in just in time. I hope that things are in order by the time the next one comes around as we know they seem to be in the middle of a lot of short sales.

I'm a firm believer in "what goes around comes around" .... sometimes it takes awhile but eventually you need to answer for what has been done.

Lynn- I am too. I am glad you already closed. We have a bunch with them, we have one that is going to sale at the courthouse next week! We are trying to get the date cancelled and reset but can not get the amount or where to deliver the $$$!!!!!!

Katerina, About a month ago Countrywide revamped the Reo dept. and came out to the agents with new computor programs to run on their system and no new listings were assigned for a few weeks so they might be doing something similar in loss mitigation.

Cameron- Thanks for your insight, that makes a lot of sense! We just need to get one of our sellers closed before she loses her house!

APR

2008

I must say that I am very confused about your post and where you get your information ????????? The fact is that 16 lenders are under investigation... Of course they are... We are still experiencing the shake down with the mortgage mess. Rest assured that Countrywide is here to stay. The rumor mill is a very bad thing in this market. It causes more negativity and less production. ALL lenders require a sales contract before a short sale, why do the work if you do not have a REAL buyer ??? Make sense ??? A short sale is not as SCARY as you are making it out to be.

Please try and stay positive and productive. Stay out of the rumor mill and focus on your sellers and your buyers. This is a time that we all need to stick together as professionals and not try to slam each other down, OR we all will get a much worse reputation with the public and there will be more "FSBO's"... Just a thought .................

Katerina- This is good information.

I am hanging a feature star on this!!!

To Anonymous Commenter- Why are you confused?

Where did you get the idea that I am making short sales out to be scary? We love to do short sales. We close them successfully and have an extremely high closing ratio. We are not novices and we do know what we are doing.

If you read through my post from beginning to end you will have read that I was informed by our in house attorney that he just received a written letter from CW, saying that Loss Mitigation was being closed for 20 days for restructuring.

The letter was NOT a rumor.

Of course I know that all lenders require a sales contract before a short sale. If you read my blog you would know that I offer an entire series on short sale education and that is one of the items that I discuss.

Our in house attorney has over 800 open files and 273 of them are short sales and deed in lieus with CW. We know what we are talking about.

Are you from Countrywide? We do have real buyers and we have a real seller who is going to lose her house in 4 days because CW can not even tell us where she needs to bring her check to cancel and reset the sale date so the sale on her house can go through.

I am fighting til the end for our seller. We are focusing on the positive. We just need to know how much this check needs to be for and where do we deliver the check. Maybe you know?

Mark- Thank you! I just had a features post today so I doubt this one would get featured too. But I will accept a gold star from you:)

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