Redding's Ups and Downs

Banks, asset management and loss mitigation companies are hurting our local buyers and our nation's economy.

Recently, after showing houses to our buyer, he found the perfect home. It was a short sale, meaning the list price is less than what is actually owed on the house. We wrote the offer on November 10th at 12:09 p.m. then called the listing agent. We were told there were no other offers on this particular house and to fax our offer to his office.

The listing agent had put in the MLS the following "private remarks":

"Short sale has been approved; lender will be able to respond to offers quickly"

Since then, we've left messages with the listing agent to call us and still have no return call, no email, no nothing. It's been 20 days. Makes us look like a you know what. Not good. It's frustrating and aggravating and it’s a waste of our time having to call frequently asking if he might "pretty please" return our calls. Maybe the lender is not communicating with him, so in turn that agent is not returning our calls, but now we’re not able to give the buyer any updates. At least we continue to call him.

This non communication regarding short sales and foreclosures is a huge problem and has happened to us many times this year. Multiply that by every county in our nation and every Realtor dealing with this. It’s a huge cash flow problem when these companies hold on to these distressed properties any longer than necessary.

Another example regarding a short sell home is one that we wrote a purchase contract on 6/17/2008. That's right, unbelievably mid June, almost a half a year ago. And the verbiage on the MLS read:

"This should be a quicker approval process".

Wrong!

It’s infuriating to our buyers and to us. With short sales and foreclosures skyrocketing, surely our banks, asset management companies and loss mitigation companies need to hire extra people to handle the overload. There are lots of people out there looking for jobs. It’s unforgivable when our client has waited almost six months for a reply. So if you want to buy a short sale, don't call us. We will become the thorn in your side when we cannot get a response from these companies. I’ve read that less than 4% of short sales actually close escrow. Gee, I wonder why. Some realtors, banks, and other asset and loss mitigation companies don't even care that buyers are waiting anxiously for answers. Nor do they seem to care if the listing agents they hire are doing a good job.

As Realtors, it is our fiduciary duty to to show buyers all homes that fit the buyer's needs, and we do. But we now tell our buyers up front the possible scenario, and we know the response time will be unbearable for most buyers. Meanwhile, our first time buyers could even lose out on the Federal housing credit of $7500, ending December 31, 2008, because the process of buying foreclosures and short sells took too long.

As Realtors, we have a huge responsibility to help our buyers. And if our buyers could get quicker approvals on offers, and the turnaround time on distressed properties were faster, we could help our nation’s economy grow stronger. Banks and mortgage companies could get back to lending so more buyers could achieve the American dream of home ownership.