Bank of America

After being relocated to another state for work, this homeowner had rented out her New Britain, CT home waiting for the market to recover. After several failed attempts at a fair market sale, she decided a short sale was her only realistic option to get out of owning the home. 

The home was priced agressively and a cash buyer was secured in a week. Bank of America was quick to respond to our short sale request and started working the file right away. Unfortunately, the brand new negotiator improperly processed the file and several weeks later, the entire file had to start again from the beginning. Despite this setback, an approval arrived in less than 8 weeks total. Usually, when homeowners are current on payments and have good income and credit (as…

Back in June of 2011 when I first listed this lovely log home with a single Bank of America Fannie Mae loan, I was sure we were in for a quick, smooth short sale! Unfortunately  - things just didn't turn out that way.

We secured our first buyer within 2 weeks on market. Bank of America was on the ball and a short sale approval letter arrived 3 short weeks later. All was well until minor inspection issues scared our sensitive first time buyers and off they went.

Our second stint on the market didn't fare as smoothly as the first. Two months and several price reductions later we secured our second buyer. Bank of America's BPO came in way higher than market value and despite our disputes, Bank of America refused to budge. The buyer walked.

It only…

When this East Haddam, Connecticut homeowner had to retire from the military, he was left unemployed and stuck with an upside down home. He was able to secure new employment, but in Florida, leaving no choice but to short sell his CT home with its VA loan. VA has their own short sale called the VA Compromise Sale.

It took exactly a month to find a buyer for this East Haddam home. Unfortunately Bank of America seems to have a real problem processing any government short sale lately and this VA loan was no exception. Three months passed as we pushed Bank of America to approve the short sale.

When the approval finally arrived - Bank of America gave us less than three weeks to close - no extensions allowed. Although this seemed near impossible at…

When this West Hartford CT homeowner and I first discussed his possible short sale, his biggest concern was never missing any payments and preserving his stellar credit. My client was headed out west to care for an ailing relative, but was stuck with a property with significant negative equity on his two Bank of America mortgages and no way to cover the loss.

Its a common misconception that in order to be approved for a short sale you have to be be behind on mortgage payments. While some lenders do require a default, many have come a long way and do approve current borrowers for short sales. The investor on this particular loan was Freddie Mac - who I have seen approve current borrowers in recent months...a feat that was seemingly impossible even a…

The rising costs of living and long daily commute left these CT homeowners tired and scraping change to make ends meet until they decided they had enough. Realizing they would likely never pay their way out of the upside down home they decided to cut their losses and short sell their home to move closer to work.

Originally a Bank of America first and second mortgage, the week we listed the home the first loan got sold to Nationstar, making the process a little more complex than originally anticipated.

It took two months to find a buyer for this home in the dead of winter. A short sale package headed to the lender. Nationstar is hit or miss. They have been known to be on the ball and approve in a few short weeks, and I have also seen the…

Although Bank of America is generally pretty easy and quick in their short sale processing as of late - there are always exceptions.

The property was well priced and agressively marketed and went under contract in just over 8 weeks. A full short sale package headed to Bank of America, where negotiators fumbled around with the file for several weeks - insisting my seller go HAFA even though he did not qualify for the program. My client was eventually able to pull out of HAFA and go with a traditional short sale.

It took another few months and two negotiators for Bank of America to reach a state of decision on the file. The property was considered an investment property and the loan had private mortgage insurance (PMI). This particular PMI company…

Bank of America is really on the ball lately with getting short sales approved rather painlessly ( for the most part anyway...) .

I originally listed the Mansfield, CT home after a fellow Realtor referred her foreclosing client to me. The property went on the market...and stagnated. The owner was reluctant to reduce the price of the property aggressively and as a result it took 4 solid months of marketing and 5 price reductions to finally secure a buyer.

It took Bank of America about 6 weeks to counter the purchase and ultimately the sale fell apart over a difference iof $2,500. We ended up back on market again.

A month later the buyer had second thoughts and agreed to up his offer by the required $2,500. Bank of America took just a few weeks…

I’ve noticed no matter what real estate website I’m on – Bank of America is advertising there…I also cringe everytime I’m in the car and I hear a random story on the radio involving something like “Bank of America pavilion”…or BofA this or that…

Bank of America- since you clearly have the funds to advertise no matter where I look, I think some of that money should be diverted to loss mitigation – specifically your short sale department.

How about:

Customer service reps that have a clue, or if they don’t know, will pass on the call to someone who does instead of giving my clients the runaround?

Paying for real appraisals? You know that BPO’s on listed property in CT are illegal right? I’ve told you several times and…

A happy ending to a long story….BUT….what I don’t quite understand is why Wells Fargo and GMAC can process their FHA short sales through Equator (a fast and efficient online platform), yet Bank of America still requires all FHA short sales to be processed  manually.

A regular Bank of America short sale processed through Equator will generally take about 3-6 weeks….BUT this FHA MANUALLY PROCESSED short sale with Bank of America took a whopping 6 months to make it through the system.

Why BofA? It doesn’t need to be this way.

There wasn’t even any good reason the short sale took 6 months to get approved…forcing sellers through endless qualifying, repeatedly losing paperwork and unresponsive negotiators are the only reasons this short…

If there is a single short sale that I enjoy lately it’s a Bank of America Fannie Mae owned loan.  This is quite possibly the single most predictable servicer/investor combination and one I am more than happy to take on.  Most Bank of America short sales will go through their Equator system, including all their Fannie Mae owned loans.

Many of my clients are in the middle of a divorce leading to the unavoidable short sale of their home, as was the case here. My client was anticipating a long troublesome journey through the short sale process and was quite elated when his short sale proved to be quick and painless.

Within 5 weeks on market we secured a buyer for the home…and after submitting the package to Bank of America – a short sale…