Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Elise Fay on October 12, 2010 at 4:01pm

Victoria

I had the exact same thing happen to me and this was the 1st time I had submitted a BofA short sale on Equator. You can call the customer service number to dispute it by asking for a manual review. Once you call in to ask for a manual review, you will re-initiate the short sale but not put in an offer. You may have to follow up and make sure it is tasked as a manual review. They will then instruct you how to proceed in Equator. Ultimately they ordered an appraisal (tho they tried to stick me with paying for it). I met the appraiser out there and pointed out the issues (bad plumbing and leaks). Once the appraisal was reviewed, the offer and supporting documents were requested.

This has proceeded as a HAFA short sale. Process was started in early July and we should have official approval in the next week. Don't give up...you will get it done. Just be persistent.

Good Luck

Elise

Permalink Reply by Pacita C Dimacali on October 12, 2010 at 5:24pm

I ran into the same problem, so I did it the old-fashioned way: I called the Short Sale department, explained my problem, had someone really nice manually enter information on Equator that allowed me to upload the offer.

Then he was even nice enough to follow up with an email to make sure I was getting in.

After that, I was able to work through the system.

Try it!

Permalink Reply by joe beauchamp on October 12, 2010 at 6:49pm

This can be most likely due to BofA error or it could be because they already have a BPO for some reason (like this was recently submitted). Try getting it in via the reps. They are usually not familiar with the mechanics of Equator - suggest that, perhaps, they have an old or bad BPO in equator (I had one that took weeks until a rep smart enough noticed a BPO from several years ago in equator instead of the one from 2 months prior in the main system).

I've also had equator jimmied up by BofA - a friendly negotiator checked for me to tell me that there was no acceptable short sale limit in equator, just the full amount due. So, you could not enter a short sale unless you were going to pay the $240K due for the $40K market value place. I had multiple manual AND paper reviews - no response.. Someone at BofA simply did not want this property to be short saled. And, except for the seller now with a lawyer, it continues to stand.

You may have to remind reps that Equator is simply a piece of software and people put in the numbers. Many times they tried to tell me that Equator knows things and calculates things - no, it doesn't. You get a rep like that, thank them for being a complete BofA idiot drone, hang up and call in again hoping to get one with 3 more brain cells.

There is 1 more avenue - John Ciresi - VP. He has a team to handle tough short sales. He has let me down on my recent issues but had been great on others. Also, if you have access to a negotiator or closing officer or team lead, ask him to look at it for you - they can see more than the reps..

Permalink Reply by Victoria Frieberg on October 13, 2010 at 12:33am

Thanks all! Late last night I put in a message to my 'generic underwrtier' explaining the issue, and attaching pictures of the roof and carpeting that has had chemicals dumped on it. I also put in my cma as an attachment. I will follow with a phone call this morning..the person I spoke with last night to initiate the file (equator said the loan number did not exist), was super responsive. I will be more than impressed if they are all that nice! will keep updating

Permalink Reply by Elise Fay on October 13, 2010 at 3:19am

Victoria--I also found it very helpful if my seller wrote a letter explaining the condition of the home. I think at times we as agents, want to take it all on ourselves but the banks love it when the buyer gets involved with some aspect of it. I had my seller write a letter and I sent it on to the bank. It rang very true and showed that the seller really cared.

Permalink Reply by Kyle Souza on October 13, 2010 at 4:53am

The easiest way to do it is to increase the offer until Equator accepts it. A lot of time the value is from the original origination appraisal in the system.

When you have to upload the offer just put in the real offer amount and then an updated valuation will be ordered during the ss process.

Permalink Reply by Jeff Payne on October 13, 2010 at 8:21am

Increase the offer until it gets accepted. Then when you are tasked with uploading the offer, put the offer price in and you will be fine

Permalink Reply by Victoria Frieberg on October 13, 2010 at 8:28am

I called BofA directly per an Equator Agent customer service person. He said the file is in review, but that I uploaded the offer to soon after the third party authorization. According to him, the authorization needs to be in the system up to five days before the system will accept any off without rejecting it. Interesting. I asked if they will have a person review it, with my photos and cma, and he said it all should be looked at, to call back in 5 days.

Permalink Reply by Kyle Souza on October 13, 2010 at 8:31am

Well now that's a lie. You can't put in an offer until they have a task taht asks you for one.

Permalink Reply by joe beauchamp on October 13, 2010 at 8:00pm

If you ever hear anything that sounds out of line, too good, absurd (other than some of their absurd and sometimes illegal policies, that is), just call in again and ask the next rep. Most of them have a whole lot more competence than the one you talked with.

I've seen my autho's go from 8 to 12 hours to a freakin' week on the last one. Prior to last month, I would have said that the Autho will be done by the next day. Frequently, I will upload everything for the seller to the equator library since I don't have to wait. Then, after the autho is accepted, you get the offer task. Putting that in triggers the request for the doc's for the offer - instantly. Then you play the BofA waiting game - calling in, asking about status, etc. But you are on your way. Fortunately, there must have been enough complaints that they have dropped the need to have "the seller" log in to put his stuff in their special little insane seller area. There are still pockets of reps who think you need to do that. I've had negotiators ask for it and I've pointed out that the files are in equator - I pretend that I didn't already send them a message through equator saying that all the seller docs are there in the library -- OK, some of them have goldfish attention spans and don't read a thing in front of them (sigh).

Uh, welcome to equator? ;-)


Victoria Frieberg said:

I called BofA directly per an Equator Agent customer service person. He said the file is in review, but that I uploaded the offer to soon after the third party authorization. According to him, the authorization needs to be in the system up to five days before the system will accept any off without rejecting it. Interesting. I asked if they will have a person review it, with my photos and cma, and he said it all should be looked at, to call back in 5 days.

Permalink Reply by joe beauchamp on October 13, 2010 at 8:06pm

Seller or Buyer or are you saying both?

Everyone has a tough time convincing BofA of a bad BPO. I'm wondering how much difference this makes. Have you seen it actually make a dent when there is an issue like that? If so, I'll give it a shot. So far, I have found I need to either wait for the BPO to die or need to have someone pay for an apprasial to get BofA to consider the BPO as bad - Absolutely NOTHING else has ever helped. (I process short sales all day, mostly in equator since I'm the only one in our office who will touch BofA - we just process short sales for attorneys and realtors.. So, I do have a little experience with things that...uh... don't work with BofA -- HA..)

Elise Fay said:

Victoria--I also found it very helpful if my seller wrote a letter explaining the condition of the home. I think at times we as agents, want to take it all on ourselves but the banks love it when the buyer gets involved with some aspect of it. I had my seller write a letter and I sent it on to the bank. It rang very true and showed that the seller really cared.

Permalink Reply by joe beauchamp on October 13, 2010 at 8:08pm

Anything GENERIC in equator means it goes to the trash - it will be logged in equator, but no one is...uh...at home. OK, as opposed to when you are dealing with BofA and..uh..no one is at home..?? ;-)

Victoria Frieberg said:

Thanks all! Late last night I put in a message to my 'generic underwrtier' explaining the issue, and attaching pictures of the roof and carpeting that has had chemicals dumped on it. I also put in my cma as an attachment. I will follow with a phone call this morning..the person I spoke with last night to initiate the file (equator said the loan number did not exist), was super responsive. I will be more than impressed if they are all that nice! will keep updating

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