Short Sale Headaches

Many lenders have dedicated staff to deal with short sales and some appear to have developed a process that works for them. Where the problem occurs is the volume of requests for short sales. It overwhelms the negotiators and others who deal with borrowers and Realtors who are requesting short sale consideration. Yesterday, we were talking to a negotiator for a lender who when we asked her to call us back with some additional information she didn’t have, said, “I have over 200 people just like you that want me to call them, just send me a new closing statement with the amount I want or this can go to foreclosure.”

Lenders are doing themselves a disservice by not staffing up these departments and allowing the negotiators to think before they act. The cost to some of these companies is huge, rather than recovering a few thousand dollars they will spend up to $60,000 in the foreclosure process and end up with nothing.

The answer here is to change the process and make the Realtor a partner not an adversary. Talk to us before we list the house, determine what a fair price is, work out the payoff needed and let us get it for them. It would make our jobs as Realtor’s easier, buyers would know if the bank is going to accept the short sale request and the lenders would reduce the workload and improve their bottom lines.