We at 2ShortsaleGuys see a lot of short sales come through our pipeline. We work with a number of different mortgage lenders to accomplish foreclosure prevention. After this week, we have literally seen it all now.
We have a listing in Dacula, Georgia that we had listed originally for $419,900. This is a beautiful home in a gated community and Wells Fargo was the lender with only one loan. This was is a conventional loan where the current owner put 15% down on the home when they purchased it in 2008. This particular short sale was purchased by a couple that was planning on getting married, however, things didn't work out and neither one of them could afford to pay for the property by themselves. Their principal balance was $403,000. Therefore, they came to 2ShortSaleGuys to list their home as a Short Sale.
Like I said, we listed the home for $419,900, after a couple of systematic price reductions, we received an offer. At the time of the offer, we had reduced the price to $356,060 and the offer was for $330,000. This was a CASH OFFER. The buyer asked for zero closing costs. The buyer can close in 3 days from approval. We began submitting the offer to the bank immediately as we are systems guys and already had all the documents we needed from the seller prior to listing the property. In fact, the file had already been initiated with Wells Fargo prior to the offer and the Broker Priced Opinion (BPO) had already been conducted.
The short sale file sat at Wells Fargo for 22 days until our assistant escalated the file in attempt to get some movement on the file. She had called, left voice messages, emailed with no response. We had no other option than to escalate the file for our sellers protection.
Once we escalated the file, we obviously upset the negotiator that was assigned to the file. What he did next was absolutely unbelievable. He sent us a message that he was counter offering the buyer's price of $330,000 (NO CLOSING COSTS) offer to $419,000. That counter was $89,000 higher than the buyer's offer and $16,000 more than the seller owed Wells Fargo. Not only did he send this ridiculous, he sent this offer at 2:21pm and required us to have an answer from the Seller by 5:00pm or he was going to decline the short sale. Well, needless to say, the buyer was very upset and didn't change their offer and the short sale got declined.
We work really hard to get these short sales approved and to the closing table to avoid foreclosure of the seller. Bill and I are in a group of Keller Williams Agents that maximizes our productivity in short sales. It's called Short Sale Inner Circle. We put this scenario out to the group as well as several other Short Sale groups that we are members of. We also began tweeting relentlessly and posting about Wells Fargo online. In a matter of about 3 hours, the Vice President of Wells Fargo had emailed us and told us that he would have someone call us. Within 30 minutes; Bill, myself and Melanie had several messages from the President's office to assist us.
Now, we aren't finished this this train wreck just yet, however, they have seen things our way. They have allowed us to dispute the value of the property and re-assigned the negotiator. I believe we are in a great place with pricing and will close this quickly. Not mention, we have 8 other Wells Fargo files that we are now getting assistance on.
The moral of the story is DO NOT GIVE UP. Just because these banks so NO; No doesn't mean NO!!! If we can be of assistance to you or you know someone that is in the situation that they need to short sale their home, please give us a call. We specialize in the North Georgia area, however, we are only a phone call a way and know many many specialists if we can't help you we will know someone that can.
Nakia Brooks and Bill Bythewood are licensed Real Estate Salespersons with the State of Georgia and their license is currently held with Keller Williams Realty – Lanier Partners (678) 425-1988 - They can be reached at their direct number 678-279-5977 or emailed at info@2ShortSaleGuys.com
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