Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mary Wilcox on October 3, 2010 at 6:24am

I should have said both incomes have been reduced by 30% which means the family income is reduced by 60%. They both work at the same place.

Permalink Reply by joe beauchamp on October 3, 2010 at 8:18pm

Well, I put a bunch of stuff here, went off to send you a message - now all gone.. geesh.

I'm sure you didn't get the ID / full name of this chris guy. He's definitely out of line and probably ripe for a good lawsuit or criminal action.

2 months is not much of an issue - foreclosures can easily take a year to get to the sheriff sale.

Not sure of HAMP - too busy for looking into what it exactly means. If it means HAFA, well, the banks throw you into HAFA regardless of what you say. If you want out, it shouldn't waste as much as a week of time. On the other hand, HAFA has some good points. I have one in each HAFA - don't know how long it will take, yet. There are delays and they promise that they'll be fast, etc.

You seem panicked and not sure of the issues. If this is an occasional or part time thing for you, I've sent you an email if you want to discuss us doing your short sale (we don't make it painful for you - no pressure, I just don't like seeing agents spun around by banks). You almost always need to be in aware of the bank and issues and able to deal in tough ways to give yourself the best chance of succeeding.

If you want to learn short sales and enjoy the wrangling and the time on the phone ( a few agents do), then you will get decent help here. I'd say start by going through the different issues and reading the suggestions given for them - there is a lot of good info here. That will give you a feel for short sales and a basic starting point. Actually, I think there are only rare things which could come up that I haven't already seen here followed by good advice, so you can cover it all.

My position is that I do this all day. I do not go and buy and sell houses - this is my preference. You are up against pro's with manuals, internal support and a desire to gouge as much as possible from everyone involved, usually. This has gotten much worse over the past 3 or 4 months. I think agents should do what they like best - buy and sell houses and we counter the banks so that having a short sale deal doesn't have to be a useless waste of frustrating time for agents. You specialize in what you like, we do what we like and accomplish.. That's my philosophy on this - hence, my offer to discuss..

Read a bunch of Q and A here and then you can decide how you want to handle your short sale - if you don't want to do it, you can call on us. So, take a deep breath and relax - you're covered no matter how you wish to go forward, OK?

Permalink Reply by Mary Wilcox on October 4, 2010 at 4:39am

No panick here really. I've done quite a few SS as well as closing them. I just got thrown off guard when I tried to research with the WF people where to go for this SS & this guy, right off the bat was insistent that they keep this house.
My people are through. They agreed to go through the process of SS but won't talk to this guy coz WF already showed them they aren't worth their word. ie. When the seller originally got their payment reduced...WF told them they would reduce it to a much lower amount. They didn't. Seller couldn't afford the reduced payment. Now, it's going back up.
I also have another listing that just slipped from regular resale to SS both are WF so that's where maybe a little urgency shines through.
I've never dealt with WF before and I need to get up to speed quick since I have two of them.

Permalink Reply by joe beauchamp on October 4, 2010 at 7:30am

WF used to be the best - sharp people, quick. I've heard they have slipped a bunch. I'm not sure what special issues there are with WF that aren't elsewhere - I can't remember any and don't have any now on my 2nd's with them.

For you seller and that chris knucklehead, if the SS is reasonable, don't throw it out just because you ran into a stonewall person, get him switched out. If nothing else, you have the opportunity here to try different things to push their buttons and get results - if it fails, no worse than not doing the SS, if it succeeds, you have something for your bag of tricks. You'll also learn their escalation issues and paths. I often use a situation like this to try "other" tactics which I would otherwise be afraid they may ruin the relationship with the negotiator/etc. Hey, if all else fails, you can at least feel good by flinging a bunch of 4 letter words at him and hanging up (ooo, while proof reading, I thought of apologizing for being so frustrated -- then maybe ask a question and while he's talking hang up) -- or if you have the patience, give him some interesting excuse for being away from the phone and put him on hold. "Oh, wait, I need to take my nitro for my heart - I'll be right back." Maybe even a little later - "Back, sorry, I need another minute to check my pulse, please don't go away, I'll be right back." Then go to lunch.. Hey, maybe he'll think you died..?? ;-)

No, I've never done that, but sometimes think about ways to get rid of some of the frustration... HA!


Mary Wilcox said:

No panick here really. I've done quite a few SS as well as closing them. I just got thrown off guard when I tried to research with the WF people where to go for this SS & this guy, right off the bat was insistent that they keep this house.
My people are through. They agreed to go through the process of SS but won't talk to this guy coz WF already showed them they aren't worth their word. ie. When the seller originally got their payment reduced...WF told them they would reduce it to a much lower amount. They didn't. Seller couldn't afford the reduced payment. Now, it's going back up.
I also have another listing that just slipped from regular resale to SS both are WF so that's where maybe a little urgency shines through.
I've never dealt with WF before and I need to get up to speed quick since I have two of them.

Permalink Reply by Mike Horton on October 4, 2010 at 11:48am

First you should know that HAMP is the precourser to being able to participate in the HAFA program. Your clients have already been through a modification which did not work, so if you just fill out the paper work for HAMP and then indicate that you want to go into the short sale (HAFA) program that drops you directly into HAFA. If they do not accept you in the HAFA program (there are certain conditions that have to be met) they will move you to the standard or default WF short sale program. Your biggest problem may be that with the WF (under instructions from the investor ) may not extend your foreclosure date even if under short sale contract. As far as this guy not participating, call the WF short sale people directly and tell them that you participated in a loan mod which does not work for your clients and you want to move forward with the short sale and could they help you out? This should get you to some one who can help with either the HAMP/HAFA programs or the WF default short sale program. And yes WF negotiators often have very bad days.

Permalink Reply by joe beauchamp on October 4, 2010 at 4:55pm

2 things to mention: 1) most of my SS's have not been through loan mod and BofA pushed them right into HAFA, so I don't think that is required; 2) on another forum, I just read about an agent who today got Fannie Mae to postpone the sheriff sale. That is (good) news to me because I've never gotten boo from FNMA - useless to me. This one was at the stage with a short sale in like 2 days and had just accepted the bank's counter. I've lost houses at that stage....! So, postponements can still be done (she said 7 hrs on the phone..) - still, I'd like to grill her to see how she did it.


Mike Horton said:

First you should know that HAMP is the precourser to being able to participate in the HAFA program. Your clients have already been through a modification which did not work, so if you just fill out the paper work for HAMP and then indicate that you want to go into the short sale (HAFA) program that drops you directly into HAFA. If they do not accept you in the HAFA program (there are certain conditions that have to be met) they will move you to the standard or default WF short sale program. Your biggest problem may be that with the WF (under instructions from the investor ) may not extend your foreclosure date even if under short sale contract. As far as this guy not participating, call the WF short sale people directly and tell them that you participated in a loan mod which does not work for your clients and you want to move forward with the short sale and could they help you out? This should get you to some one who can help with either the HAMP/HAFA programs or the WF default short sale program. And yes WF negotiators often have very bad days.