Short sales on an REO Portal?
a house unoccupied...
“Here is an article we thought you would be interested in.
BOA Implements Equator (REOTrans) Platform, as Short Sales Gain Ground
10/22/2009 By: Carrie Bay, reporter for DS News
California-based Equator (formerly known as REOTrans) says it has launched the industry’s first-ever short sale module for a large national lender.
Although Equator declined to name the lender, the San Francisco Chronicle has reported that Bank of America is the company in question. A representative from BofA recently told the paper that they were using the Equator platform to manage the short sale process. ”This is the first time that short sales have been handled through an electronic platform,” said Equator CEO Chris Saitta. “With our new system, everyone works together in real time, dramatically improving communication and approval timelines for our client, its borrowers, vendors, and real estate agents.”
Short sales, in which a lender and borrower reach an agreement to dispose of a property threatened by foreclosure at a price that is “short” of the amount owed on the mortgage, have become more popular among lenders lately as a viable method for dealing with distressed properties. According to Equator, the number of successful short sales has increased spectacularly across the country in the wake of the foreclosure crisis.
Kevin Kieffer, a Realtor with Keller Williams Realty in Danville, California, told the Chronicle, “A year ago I wouldn’t touch a short sale. It would be random prices banks wouldn’t agree to, you would be tied up six months hoping to get a property sold. But now we’re seeing banks up front negotiating prices and giving us criteria. They’re getting creative to make things move.”
Equator says the keys to a successful short sale are accessibility, responsiveness, communication, and fulfillment. By adopting its short sale platform, the company says large lenders, such as the unnamed Bank of America, can ensure troubled borrowers have 24/7 access to a portal through which they can provide the necessary information to process a short sale and receive real-time status updates electronically.
“Short sales can be a daunting, complicated, frustrating task for everyone involved,” Saitta said. “This fresh approach using our sophisticated platform makes it fast and efficient for all parties involved.”
Equator’s short sale module also automates decisioning for the lender, handles approvals for faster turnaround, provides quick fulfillment, and assures full compliance with government programs, Saitta said.”
This was emailed to me in a non-confidential message from REOTrans. I have had extensive experience with the platform, and have had little problem with the platform itself. Bank-owned property was my niche.
The issue was with the banks using it, and the fact that often times the decision-making regarding sale of the property appeared not to make sense in the real world of real estate.
These are the facts. We are in a mess right now, and while we will recover from it, everyone is going to take a hit. Period. Banks are going to lose money on top of the money they have already lost, and they can do everything they can to staunch the flow of blood, but here is the truth. It is to your benefit to sell the property as quickly as you can. If you can expedite the sale of the property while it is still occupied, so much the better. Forget about that arbitrary 17% short sale spread (list price to offer price)- and this is why. Maybe on paper this makes sense, but I see that once you have cash-for-keyed the occupants, you stand the chance of vandalism and acts-of-god that no one cares to stop. We have had copper stripped out of homes, ceilings cave in because of unnoticed leaks, wire stolen, and one of our properties was actually burned to the ground. And in a market driven by bank-owned property, regular resale owners are hard-pressed to sell their homes at close to a reasonable price- the property won’t comp out. Property that has made it to the bank-owned level feeds the bank-owned monster.
Homeowners are going to take a hit. I don’t know if I even need to detail the many ways this is happening, and I don’t feel that it is reassuring that it is happening across the boards.
Banks have to “get creative to make things move.” This means firing attorneys that do not do their jobs and taking it seriously when people report agents to them that do not present offers that match the bank’s criteria.
Will following a short sale transaction electronically help with the process? Possibly, if there are enough personnel assigned to handle the job to start out with, and we all realize that we are bearing the pain of what we are going through together.
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