I remember hearing years ago, when on Black Friday, so many Financial Brokers jumped because of frustration caused by the falling market. Now I know how they felt! Dealing with the banks on a property that is upside down and the seller is forced to sell can make any Realtor go bald. I guess it is because they have so many files to deal with but it seems to me, that if they get a better system, they would get a lot more cash in quickly but getting some of their properties closed. Maybe they want the ‘radioactive’ properties on their books so they can take them as a loss, year after year, but we have several buyers waiting and waiting for the banks to finish the paperwork and let them buyer their property. One set of buyers comes to mind. They offered over listing price which was a little over market value anyhow, but they wanted that particular unit. They submitted their offer, with the appropriate short sale paperwork, on March 3rd, 2010. They are still waiting for Bank of American to send the approval.
If my customers walk away, which they are seriously considering, the bank will not receive any offers close to theirs since the market value is still decreasing. As their Realtors, we are doing our best to keep them informed as best we can, but banks won’t talk with the Realtors working with the buyers only the sellers. We, therefore have to rely on the communication from the listing side. Sometimes, it is not as coming as we and our customers would like. Again, it would seem to me that a bank would want to work with all parties involved in the transaction so they could get it closed earlier.
It is almost like the banking industry and the real estate industry are in adversarial positions. There has been a history of that since about 5 or so years ago, the Realtor call was to “Keep Banking out of Real Estate”. But instead of being in this position, it would seem that the two fields should be working closely together. The banks finance the properties that the Realtors help their customers find. It would seem logical that the two professions would work much more closely together. Despite all of the derivatives talk and the huge amount of money the banks received from and then lost because of the derivatives market based on real estate loans, the two professions need to really look harder at how their symbiotic relationship deteriorated and how it can be fixed.
I know that there is a company in Canada that is working on a software program that banks can use to keep track of where are their loans are in the process. My question to them was “why would you not integrate a Realtor part in that system”. Just like the real estate community needs the banks, the banks need the real estate community. They are now looking into it and both sides of the transaction will have access to the information. Call me Pollyanna but maybe, just maybe, there might be some light at the end of this dark short sale nightmare!
