Starting Over on a HAFA Due to Chase Bank Short Sale HELOC

What does it mean to start over on a HAFA short sale through Bank of America because the HELOC department (second lien holder) at Chase Bank messed up? That’s a question that is probably lingering in the minds of many frustrated home buyers across the United States right now because if it happens in Sacramento, you can bet it happens elsewhere. Let me be clear that a Chase Bank short sale, when Chase is in first position, actually seems to run rather smoothly in Equator now, it’s just those second liens that are a royal PITA.

Why, believe it or not, sellers and buyers can start a short sale in December and still be working on it at the end of March when the Chase HELOC department finally gets around to ordering a BPO. A Sacramento short sale agent can call 3 times a week and sometimes leave several messages a day and escalate, and nobody from Chase will return the call probably because they a) know an agent will call back or b) Chase doesn’t pay them enough to give a flying fig or c) they’ll quit or get fired.

Supervisors’ emails fill up with messages and they don’t return calls, either. Hello, Julio Escobedo?It seems that half the HELOC short sale department at Chase is either out to a 3-martini lunch, on vacation or sleeping in a broom closet. I hate to say this, but we had a much easier time with Chase when it was not using Equator for these second loans. Its performance today is dismal and disappointing.

But what else is new in a short sale? I’ve been closing them for 8 years now, hundreds of short sales. Now that we have approval from Bank of America on a certain HAFA short sale and we were able to beg, borrow and steal an extra two weeks to gain a short sale extension to close escrow, no matter how many hand grenades we toss at Chase, we can’t light a fire under its feet.

Chase will amble along, waddling like a fat walrus after a big lunch, drooling fish guts down its chin.

It’s not giving up to “start over” with Bank of America on a short sale. Because Bank of America is pretty streamlined in Equator. But then it’s been working harder on short sales than Chase, and that’s evident. Bank of America can approve a short sale 2 or 3 times in the length of time it will take Chase to issue one approval letter. Chase really needs to get with the program and clean up its work ethic. We’ll get a rush on the approval process at Bank of America and probably get the second approval for this HAFA short sale before Chase has had time to tie its shoes.

See, and this is why I buy stock at Bank of America and not Chase.