“I can’t talk right now, I’m at my day job,”

…came the whisper from the other end of the phone.

Escrows are falling apart at an alarming rate these days. Most of the fallout—according to my agents—is caused by incompetent lenders.

On a recent visit to Keller Williams, Chris DeMattei and his team shared a story with me. They had an escrow that was late in closing. Loan docs had not arrived in time, and they couldn’t get any information or a return call from the lender. Unsure how bad the problem was and totally in the dark, they were anxious and frustrated.

Like so often these days, the buyer had come with his own lender. This person was unknown to the team and felt no accountability to the relationship. When things got tough, she stopped returning calls. Elaina, the team’s buyer’s agent, had finally caught up to her late one morning only to be told, “I can’t talk right now, I’m at my day job.”

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