Short Sale Bank Report

Bank of America Short Sale: Instituted a system called Equator to better handle the process.   It has!  They've gone from the worst to one of the best and to make it even better, BOA is often ordering a full appraisal on the property rather than hinging their entire valuation on a random Broker Price Opinion from some random yahoo from 5 counties away willing to complete the tedious task for $45.  BOA is now a preferred bank to work with on short sales.  

Wells Fargo Short Sale: Wells goes through cycles and I think it's most often determined by the negotiator.  Currently, I'm having good success with Wells and I've had great success with Wells in the past including a 14 day approval that is very rare.  Wells Fargo is a preferred short sale bank.

Chase Short Sale: Finally has taken some initiative to get ahead of their problem by collecting financial documents upfront which should help speed up their process.  I've had a 6 month approval time frame which is currently my worst success thus far.  I say success because it did end in the buyer getting the house and the seller being able to finally move on.  Internally, the processors assure me they are striving for 60 day approvals....which I've yet to witness.   Due to the pain of the "6 monther" but the recent proactive attempts, I'm neutral on Chase.

Suntrust Short Sale: I like to call a Suntrust Short Sale the 90 day no action plan.  It takes 90 days, they finally give you a negotiator, and then boom - Short Sale Approved!  Wishing they could speed up to 30 days obviously, but I'm happy to get the approvals as is.  Suntrust is a preferred short sale bank.

Citi Short Sale: 60 days approved.  Citi has for the most part done a very good job keeping the process moving.  Citi is a preferred short sale bank.

US Bank Short Sale: It's too bad consumers can't fire their mortgage bank like Trump fires on the Apprentice.  I've erased all further thoughts on this bank before publishing this article.  Instead, this is my take:  I'm not taking any US Bank short sales at the moment - subject to change obviously.

Regions Bank: A regional player in the South East.  BIG FAN!  They do it right.  They look at the value, they look at the offer, they cut their losses.  They are extremely fast with approvals around 30 days or less.  Did I say BIG FAN!  Dear Regions Bank President, please talk with your friendly recruiter about opportunities that may be available at US Bank.  Regions Bank is a preferred short sale bank.

IBM Lender Business Processing Services Inc: They are a servicer right here in Jacksonville and are a little difficult to work with. They service the loan for some other entity, and you must go through them for the approval.  The good news, we get approvals, but it's tough going to get them.  I'm neutral on a Short Sale with IBM LBPS Inc.

American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc.: Basically the exact same as above, and also have a large location here in Jacksonville.  I'm neutral on a Short Sale with AHMSI.

WILD CARDS: Many of the banks above may be servicing the loan that is actually owned by another entity like Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae or some other investor.  The servicer or servicing bank will have the terms specified by the investor for approval, once you get the bank approval based on the investor terms, the entire short sale is then submitted to the actual investor for final approval.  This adds time and more red tape.  A few wild cards follow:

• Freddie Mac: We the people, own Freddie Mac who owns a large majority of our loans.  Officially in the real estate world, Freddie Mac is a "Pseudo governmental agency".  Not sure what that really means, but it may mean "Red tape creator and slow downer of short sales for Brad Officer and company".  Kidding aside, we have strong relationships with the higher ups within Freddie Mac which we have to call on more often than not.

• Mortgage Insurance companies:They are also part of this Wild Card group.  You have paid as part of your mortgage, whether you realized it or not, to insure the bank against a percentage of potential loss due to a distressed sale type of situation.  When a short sale goes through, the MI company will have to agree to the sale as well as they are potentially providing the mortgage company with some of the loss in cold hard cash.  MI companies are understandably making it difficult.

If you've spent any time reading this, you are probably either in a short sale situation, considering a short sale, or are a real estate agent doing some research.  Either way, I hope you pulled from this information that it is very important to educate yourself and to work with experts when attempting a short sale.