listened in on the BofA webinar yesterday. I thought it was very informative and not at all cryptic. BofA is giving all of us plenty of notice to get it right. If you can't take the time to get 5 documents signed, then quit doing short sales.

All of BofA changes make sense and so does all of their new documents. I totally understand why BofA is now requiring only licensed professionals or attorneys to be the authorized third party reps for the homeowner.

I know I am going to catch a lot of flack on this..but I am totally opposed to anyone else being involved in a short sale except for the homeowner, the broker-agent and the bank. I fully understand it is a "debt settlement" but this is not about a credit card, a car loan or a personal loan. It's about a debt secured by real estate. In every state in this country, one must be licensed in order do represent buyers or sellers and BofA is making sure their customers will be getting proper, professional representation. Anything less is wrong and does not serve the homeowner or our profession.

Think about the amount of information we have on a homeowner, from their financials to tax returns to credit cards accounts the to birth date of their first born(not really but you get my point). They are putting their entire life history on the table for us. They are trusting us to keep that information between us and the bank. It's sacred. It's emotional and it should remain as private as possible.

How many of you have received a letter from your bank, credit card company or previous mortgage company informing you that one of their employees got fired for selling off P&C information? I have. A few years back I received a letter and two years of free credit monitoring because an employee at Countrywide had sold P&C information on thousands of customer to a bunch of crooks.

Everyday we hear about another company who has a bad employee who sold customer information or someone hacked into their accounts. Everyone freaks and hope it's not their credit card, bank account, etc that is affected. Identity theft is the number one cyber crime in this country.

So what's the first thing a lot of agents are doing? They third party out the third party to someone completely unknown to the homeowner. It really should be,FOURTH PARTY. My question to all the agents who are doing this is, was that 4th party rep sitting at the kitchen table while your homeowner(s) were practically in tears as they gave you the down and dirty details of what has happened to put them in the position they are now faced with? If they weren't, did you inform the homeowner you are going to farm out ALL of their P&C information to some company or person they probably have never heard of?

At the Fourth Party's office... DO you know every single person who will have access to the file? How secure is that office, the files, their computer systems? Have you ever thought about these issues and most importantly, do you even care? If you haven't, then you had better; because the liability is all yours. You farmed it out.

Are you working for your commission or for your clients? The answer should always be you are working for your clients. It's not the quantity of short sales you do..it should be the quality.

This is what I tell my clients and I will never shift my position on this. Except for sending their information to their lien-holder(s), their information never leaves my office. It's not in my Ipad, my Blackberry or any other place where a crook can hack into my files. Once files are scanned, they are shredded and the files are sent to the banks via a secure drop box. If you haven't noticed...take notice...more and more emails from the banks are coming in via encrypted emails and secure websites such as Equator.

I have not and never will farm my client's file to a fourth party. What goes on at DHR stays at DHR. It is not about the number of short sales I close. It's about doing the best job possible for my clients. I have always said, it's bad enough that their file is part of a huge pile of files at BofA. I will not allow their file to become part of another pile of files in someone else's office.

Quit making these changes at BofA about you. Quit whining about a few extra forms. We are the professionals. Do your job and do it for the right reasons. Be proud that, by doing what we are doing as short sale brokers/agents, we are saving one more person/family from financial disaster by keeping them out of foreclosure. We are preserving what is left of their credit and one day having them call you back to help them purchase another home.

A successful short sale today is tomorrow's business. Your clients can be back in the market in 2-3 years. In between will they refer other business to you? Do you want to be remembered as the broker/agent who walked along side of them through the entire ordeal (yes.. to the homeowner it is an ordeal and a very traumatic one), held their hand and did a fantastic job representing them? Or, will the forget they ever heard of you because, as their broker/agent, they could never find you, talk to you, ask you questions and the one who farmed out all their personal and confidential information to someone they didn't know so you could tout that you closed 100 short sales in 2011? I know which category I am in...do you?

I wrote a book, it's called.. "What Goes Around...". It's not about real estate or anywhere near..but I do believe..what goes around...comes around. Take care of your clients and they will be back. Treat them as a number and you will never hear from them again.

Respectfully
Johanna Devon, Principal Broker
DHR/Commercial, Land & Residential Brokerage