Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Neil L. on May 11, 2010 at 3:54am

in equator, i have been waiting 4 weeks for my a file to go from "Valuations" to a negotiator so far. Good question.

Permalink Reply by Gary Carpenter on May 12, 2010 at 3:54am

It depends on allot of different variables. If equator has accepted the initial paperwork on the short sale, then you should have someone within 2 weeks. Valuation is very tricky. They use a valuation model for the property, that is mostly flawed and doesn't accurately reflect the value. If this happens, you have to push for a manual review of the property. You will need a floor manager to do this. After that has been established, which can take a couple of weeks to do, you can follow through with equator and within 2 weeks, you should have a negotiator assigned. Other than that, you should have a negotiator within 2 weeks. There policy is that the negotiator has to make a note on the file every 15 days.

Permalink Reply by Jennifer Perdue on May 12, 2010 at 5:30am

Thanks for your reply, Gary. Tomorrow will be six weeks and still nothing. :(

Permalink Reply by Gary Carpenter on May 14, 2010 at 5:51am

Jennifer,

you're going to need to escalate this to a floor manager or go to BoA executive review. The executive review number is 704-386-5681. Explain your situation to whoever answers the phone. From there, they should assign someone to the case, usually within 72 hours, this will pick up the pace and get your short sale back on track. If you need more advice or if this doesn't address your situation, there may be something I'm missing about your file that isn't standard, ofcourse this is BoA and nothings standard. With that said, feel free to call me and discuss in detail at (586)435-5323.

Permalink Reply by Brigitte Powell on May 16, 2010 at 2:11am

I thought after April 5th the negotiators are supposed to be assigned 10 days after the short sale package (contract) has been submitted?

Permalink Reply by Brigitte Powell on May 16, 2010 at 2:14am

I am told that if the supervisor (of the call center) emails the negotiator about your problem he or she needs to respond within 48 hours or they will "take it higher up"

Permalink Reply by cheryl on May 16, 2010 at 5:39am

There is NO normal with BofA. But you should make sure that the seller has turned in all of their paperwork on a BofA site...not Equator. Once they have done that it may be just a week. Calling everyday will only worsen your agents negotiation chances!!!! Don't do it!!!!! Sounds like they need more info. The only difficult part is working with an agent that has not become familiar with the process...and a loooooooooong process it is!

Permalink Reply by Jennifer Perdue on May 17, 2010 at 2:52am

Thanks everyone. I don't know whether to cry or just be angry. This is already such a long process and having to wait four additional weeks and still not have a negotiator is frustrating. I forwarded all the information to our agent and asked him to contact the listing agent about it. As a buyer, I feel completely useless. I'm also annoyed because I was told that the listing agent has experience with short sales, but clearly since it's been almost seven weeks, he has to realize that something isn't right....

Permalink Reply by Gary Carpenter on May 17, 2010 at 3:09am

As a buyer, you will be very frustrated throughout the process without some updates. The question I would have is about the listing agent. This is the contact person if they haven't hired a negotiator. If they haven't, you should ask your agent to push for this. It doesn't cost you or the seller anything, the bank foots the bill for the negotiator and it shows up on the HUD as an expense from the bank. If you find a negotiator that is going to charge you upfront, I would say don't do it. If you have a good negotiator, they will get paid when the deal closes. If they're getting paid upfront, the motivation to get the deal done declines. As a buyer, you have allot of say in how this gets done, you're the money person in the transaction, without you there is no transaction. Push to have the listing agent put the deal with a negotiator that A) updates on a weekly basis, B) has experience with negotiating with BoA, C) does not charge upfront, D) is acceptable to phone calls when you have a question. BoA is one of the hardest banks to get a short sale done with and if you have someone that doesn't know the system and how to work the system, you're looking at waiting a long time before you get to move into your new house. This should have already had a negotiator assigned from the bank. The only reason that it may not have yet, is that there is a value dispute. Even with that your deal should be more advanced than it is now. Good luck.

Permalink Reply by Brigitte Powell on May 17, 2010 at 4:26am

Definitely could be a value dispute. I have found that if I ask what the hold up is, the person in the call center seems to be able to tell me when they read the information in the folder (on the computer). In my case, I was told that they were in the process of checking the buyer's credit.....has anyone been told that? They called it something else, and when i asked what that meant, they told me it meant the buyer's credit was being checked. I don't feel I was lied to because the next time I called I asked if that had been done and they told me that it had and they were waiting for the conformation of value. I also sent them several additional recent solds (entered them into the "Library" ) to confirm that our price was right, also pointing out price per square foot AND anything that would provide additional proof of value (dark house, two bedroom instead of three bedroom when comparing other solds in the area, older appliances compared with solds that have new appliances etc etc). All the best

Gary Carpenter said:

As a buyer, you will be very frustrated throughout the process without some updates. The question I would have is about the listing agent. This is the contact person if they haven't hired a negotiator. If they haven't, you should ask your agent to push for this. It doesn't cost you or the seller anything, the bank foots the bill for the negotiator and it shows up on the HUD as an expense from the bank. If you find a negotiator that is going to charge you upfront, I would say don't do it. If you have a good negotiator, they will get paid when the deal closes. If they're getting paid upfront, the motivation to get the deal done declines. As a buyer, you have allot of say in how this gets done, you're the money person in the transaction, without you there is no transaction. Push to have the listing agent put the deal with a negotiator that A) updates on a weekly basis, B) has experience with negotiating with BoA, C) does not charge upfront, D) is acceptable to phone calls when you have a question. BoA is one of the hardest banks to get a short sale done with and if you have someone that doesn't know the system and how to work the system, you're looking at waiting a long time before you get to move into your new house. This should have already had a negotiator assigned from the bank. The only reason that it may not have yet, is that there is a value dispute. Even with that your deal should be more advanced than it is now. Good luck.

Permalink Reply by Brigitte Powell on May 17, 2010 at 5:09am

I still say they need to quit calling the negotiator and start calling the call center asking for the supervisor and the team leader. If the listing agent has contacted the negotiator thru email and direct calls to the negotiator's phone number and have kept good notes and dates and times, they will get a response from the supervisor in the call center. I know I have gotten answers that way. The supervisors tell me that the negotiator has 45 hrs to answer THEIR inquiry and ultimately the real estate's inquiry if this does not occur they ask that the listing agent call back and complain and they will take it higher up. I'm in process of doing this today and will post what I find out.

Permalink Reply by Jennifer Perdue on May 26, 2010 at 5:16am

Thank you everyone for your replies! With all this info, I pushed my agent and told him that I was confident that something was not right. I provided him the phone number that Gary listed and so I think he saw that I was serious in the information I had found. He ended up calling the phone number that day and was told a supervisor would call him back. A few days later we had a negotiator. He doesn't know exactly what the hold up was, but speculates that the LA submitted the information incorrectly into the system, so our file was literally sitting out there in cyber space not going anywhere. Someone had to actually back out our file and re-enter it into the sytem and that's when things started rolling. I'm certain that if I had not gotten all your input and pushed my agent, it would have continued to sit there. Since finding out on Monday that we have a negotiator, I have also found out that the bank appraisal was completed yesterday and all of sellers updated financial info was submitted yesterday. Thanks again for all your help. The information you provided that allowed me to go to our agent with real input was priceless and got our file moving!

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