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Hi folks. Today I want to clear up one big misunderstanding about the Equator.com system. For those of you that aren't familiar with Equator, Equator is the online portal that Bank of America and GMAC use to help expedite their short sales. Quite often I hear from agents, buyers and sellers that......"Equator accepted our offer" or "Equator denied our short sale." In fact, here's a question I pulled off of www.ShortSaleSuperStars.com this morning.

• "Equator accepted our counter. Then 5 days later said it "made a mistake" and rejected our offer, after it accepted. Has anyone seen this before?"

MY RESPONSE:

Equator is nothing more than a software program to help lenders/servicers process short sales. They don't have negotiators nor can they make decisions about short sales.

When a short sale is entered into Equator, the servicer (usually Bank of America), is looking at the deal and trying to negotiate a short sale that they feel the investor (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and others) AND the mortgage insurance company (MI) will accept. Once a short sale in Equator is "accepted" it is then passed on to the next entity (investor and/or MI) for their approval. This entity may very well come back and continue to negotiate or even reject the deal that was already "accepted" by the servicer.

• ***Until an actual written short sale approval letter or denial letter is issued the transaction is still being negotiated and the terms and conditions can change.

When you receive a counter offer in Equator the Seller has 3 options.

• Accept: If you accept the deal is passed on for final approval (or counter).

• Reject: If you reject....the file is closed and you have to start over. ***Warning Will Robinson!!*** NEVER reject!!! Rejecting in Equator is not something that can be retracted. If you choose that option in a fit of passion you have to start over. DON'T DO IT!!

• Counter. Unless the deal is acceptable...counter. Countering is where you have the opportunity to dispute a cash contribution, or a promissory note. It's also your opportunity to dispute the value of the property by uploading market data.

But whatever you do, just remember, you are NOT negotiating with Equator. Make sense?

By the way, here's a sample offer and counter offer from the Equator system. Hopefully this will help.

Sample Equator Counter Offer

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