I am not sure where I will end up going with this blog, but here it goes. I am currently struggling with the way real estate is headed after hearing about all of the states that are trying to stop foreclosure proceedings and with the current short sale process.
I am not as concerned about the foreclsoures as I am the short sales. I have recently been involved in a very disappointing short sale and here is the short history....
i have a buyer for a short sale and we write an offer that is signed by the seller that no longer lives in the state. The sellers agent proceeds to present the signed contract to the bank. The bank sits on the contract for a month when they decide to look at it and ask the seller for more documents for his finances. The sellers says that he refuses to provide anything more because he is "done" with all of this and the bank can foreclose if they want to. I then proceed to ask the bank what his payoff is so that maybe my buyer will go up on their offer because they really love the house. The seller gave us a round about number that he thought he owed and we are not that far off from our offer. We than proceed to ask the bank for a more firm payoff so that we can maybe pay the loan off without the seller being involved. The bank is going on three weeks now without giving us a payoff. My buyers don't understand and are getting frustrated.
Now that you know the story here is where my venting comes in. Us agents know the problems with short sales and we never expect miracles. Our customers on the other hand don't see it like us. I set the expectation up front that short sales are difficult, frustrating and unpredictable. Clients here us when we say that but emotion always takes over.
The political part in all of this comes from the process and laws itself. As REALTORS and licensed agents we have a duty and an obligation to treat offers and contracts in an ethical and timely fashion. We call it "time is of the essence".
Banks, lenders and third parties do not have to abide by these same standards. They can make up any rules they want and take as much time as needed.
ATTENTION CONGRESS! This is what you should be working on instead of some of the other idiotic things that take up valuable time..(for the record I am well versed in politics and know exactly what specifics they are working on but I do not want to offend anyone with my political views with what congress is doing, suffice it to say that I am RIGHT handed). We are bringing qualified willing and able buyers to the table and they are walking away because people can't wait 6 months for a decision on a house that they may not get anyway. Hearing a no or getting a counteroffer is not the problem. It's getting those answers six months from now that is so bad. We need legislation RIGHT now that will get these banks off their @&%$ and get these contracts approved. We have got to hold these people accountable.
Write your congress men and women, send emails, send emails to NAR to put some of our lobbying money to good use. Do whatever you can to change this process. We owe it to our clients.
I am held accountable everyday and all I ask is others be as well.
As always this is solely my opinion and no liberals were harmed writing this blog
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