Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by William Chea on September 6, 2011 at 3:31pm

eligible does not mean approve. You can be eligible and still get denied. Sellers need to fill out forms as a part of the process.

Permalink Reply by Coleen DeGroff on September 6, 2011 at 3:46pm

Hi William - Thanks for the clarification. :)

Permalink Reply by Sara Mehrpouyan Los Angeles CDPE on September 6, 2011 at 3:34pm

Hi

I have had sellers go with HAFA for Bank of America without an offer. (there is a difference if they have an offer and if they do not) The seller calls B of A short sale dept and gets asked a few questions. If they qualify, they will refer them over to the outsourcer. Without an offer, the outsourcer is AMS Servicing. I fax AMS my 3rd party authorization and they expect the borrower to send them a couple of documents to start & order the appraisal to continue. Do you have an offer yet?

Permalink Reply by Coleen DeGroff on September 6, 2011 at 3:46pm

Hi Sara - No offer yet. We are trying to do all the legwork on the front end before putting the house on the market.

 

I LOVE this group!!!!  You guys are the best!!!

Permalink Reply by Katerina Gasset on September 6, 2011 at 3:36pm

They may be HAFA eligible. Not the same as approved or qualified. The package they got is the one they have to fill out and get back to BOFA. This package is for the HAFA program. After BofA reviews those documents they will send the sellers a letter of an offer to do the HAFA with the rules they must abide by during the process. They are supposed to get the sellers an answer back in 14 days from receipt of that package, but don't be surprised if they don't:)

Permalink Reply by Coleen DeGroff on September 6, 2011 at 3:45pm

Thank you so much Katerina!!! :)

Permalink Reply by Estella Drake, CDPE on September 7, 2011 at 3:46am

If your seller can go traditional short sale you might want to explore this, AMS is a living Hell! See my post on AMS. I have close two recently and one took 94 phone calls and the other 68 from start to finish. They will piece meal you to death, make sure you work hand and hand with your escrow officer, pull a full prelim, Do not include any 3rd party liens on your estimated settlement statement, make sure they have not sold/transfered the second-check the MERS system for deligated/nondeligated BofA 1st 2nd, first settlement statement must go out 90 days no less..AMS will have you adjust this date once you have an approval, again once offer approved and please make sure the RASS matches the settlement statement, 1cent off will reject your paperwork and close file, keep a very good log of calls, make sure the person you talk to call tracks, best negotiator is Carmel, any of the Chris' they have 3, I have few other ones, will post later, if you call on Monday ask if the person who answered is a neg. Because if they are not you get nothing but wasted air, I can write a book, lol I'm working on a procedure book called start to finish with AMS.

Permalink Reply by joe beauchamp on September 7, 2011 at 4:21am

As you have found, HAFA OK'd just means that the seller is w/in the rules to be able to do HAFA - primary residence, turned down for HAMP loan mod, etc.

Everything dealing with BOA is touchy - one wrong move and you frequently go to square one - and often the wrong move is by someone at BOA..??  You frequently get form email/letters/junk from them.  Look at them one at a time.  Assume that everything else was sent by some drone, so if it says fill out and reply by (they love absurd deadlines - like a week before you got the letter - but they are getting better at that), do it.  You are far better off submitting and filling out everything - or verifying with the negotiator (asset mgr at AMS - specialist now at BOA - burger flipper at McD's..??) that they already have xyz and you don't have to resubmit it.  Besides getting the evidence of a reply, you keep a conversation going - not bad.

The by far biggest delays at AMS are because almost everything they do requires a request to BOA to actually have it done there.  Request for BPO, request to have someone calculate the NPV, request to get the BOA payoff, request to calculate the investor number. From receiving BPO to getting the negotiator response has usually been a 3 to 4 day process with a regular short sale.  With AMS, including many escalations (simply emails to BOA to do their job), I've had BPO's expire - months to do the same 4 day task.  BOA SS reps are unaware of this and will tell you to talk to AMS and that AMS is the holdup.

AMS definitely is bogged down - goes from hot to cold a lot, but my huge delays have always been "under the hood" - you have no access or control over the BOA negotiator NOT bothering to respond with the BOA payoff, for instance.

Do stay on top of AMS - from time to time, you get a rep who is either good or is also an "asset manager" and will jump in and get that next task done for you.  If you don't stay on them, things won't happen.

Eventually, you will get a listing price - around the BPO number usually.  You are supposed to list the property for this amount.  Mine have ALWAYS been too high - expect the same, however, after 3 weeks, you can go back to them to adjust the list price - every 3 weeks until the 120 day program ends.

Good luck!