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REDC Threatens B of A Seller on Turkey Day
An unnamed person at Bank of America confirmed for me last week that the bank is indeed pulling its HAFA and Cooperative Short Sales in-house — which is music to any short sale agent’s ears. And not the crappy kind of music like Barry Manilow, but more like early Beatles, before Yoko Ono messed everything up. And not just to this Sacramento short sale agent, but every short sale across the nation is putting down her pumpkin-pie laden fork and giving thanks to the decision by B of A to do away with its third-party vendors like REDC for these short sales. With any kind of short sale, though, these miraculous changes don’t happen over night. As a result, we are stuck with REDC for a handful of Cooperative Short Sales still on the road to Pocatello.
I have asked negotiator, let’s call her Mao, through Equator over and over and over to clarify for us whether she is negotiating a Carmichael short sale as a Cooperative Short Sale because everything about this particular short sale has gone sideways. It’s not being handled at all like a regular Cooperative Short Sale. This negotiator has ignored all questions. Then, on the day before Thanksgiving, she gave us 24 hours to send her financials or she would close the file.
24 hours on Thanksgiving Day!
Yes, on Thanksgiving Day, instead of celebrating with his family, a seller scrambled to pull together financial documents he was promised he did not need to submit. I suspect part of this request is due to the fact that Fannie Mae changed its guidelines on November 1. But even so, it is inexcusable that a representative for Bank of America would purposely cause a borrower, a client of Bank of America, such grief on Thanksgiving. This negotiator has continued to ignore requests, too.
I will say, Mao, do you realize this is a preapproved Cooperative Short Sale? And she will say: Remove the incentive from the HUD. Again: Mao, are we on the same page that this is a preapproved Cooperative Short Sale? Instead, she will ask how much the seller is willing to contribute. She outta lay off the eggnog.
It’s a good thing that Bank of America is getting rid of REDC. It’s just a shame it’s taking them so long to pull the plug.
A Couple of Short Sale Rumors
An agent friend in northern California said yesterday that Wells Fargo and Chase are planning to rollout new short sale programs this fall. There are a couple of short sale rumors that they are handing over short sale leads to their REO agents. The banks’ thinking, no doubt, is all Sacramento real estate agents are the same, which is pretty insulting to some of us. Some of us are very different. For starters, I get my nails done at a nail salon versus the usual method of chewing them off with my teeth.
Call me silly but some REO agents don’t own a cellphone. That can be a major problem. You and I know they don’t have a phone because they don’t answer it. And their attention to detail, which is required for a short sale, is legendary, right? But hey, we’re talking about Wells Fargo and Chase. What do you want? A cake to go with that nail file?
In other short sale rumors circulating, REDC, a third-party vendor for Bank of America, is pushing Auction.com. A friend at Bank of America says he thinks REDC got its start as Auction.com, but I haven’t checked out that belief. A rep from REDC called me twice about slipping a short sale listing into Auction.com’s 120-day program. That’s longer than some rehab programs. Why would it take 120 days to sell a short sale in Sacramento? Our market is so tight it squeaks.
He wants my seller to agree to let buyers traipse through his home for at least 30 days and make offers online. Auction.com will get paid its commission from the buyer. Listing agents and selling agents are still paid by the seller. That’s an awful lot of commissions to go around in one transaction. I think he’s drinking Kool-Aid, and not the stuff made with sugar. That sounds totally insane. Because you know what will happen. Crazy and frantic buyers will bid up the price to a place where it will never appraise by the buyer’s lender. Then, it will be back to Square One with that short sale when the appraisal comes in low. We don’t need no stinkin’ auctions for Sacramento short sales. No rational seller wants to turn his home into a three-ring circus to boost the profits at Auction.com.
I should just sit back and look at the bright side. The bright side is my web designer got my new website to finally work correctly for Twitter yesterday. And I put a new short sale in Galt on the market today. I prefer my method of selling real estate. The one where the sellers contact me and not the other way around. Nobody wants to be hounded by a real estate agent.
Photo: Shutterstock
