REDC Threatens B of A Seller on Turkey Day

An unnamed person at Bank of America confirmed for me last week that the bank is indeed pulling its HAFA and Cooperative Short Sales in-house — which is music to any short sale agent’s ears. And not the crappy kind of music like Barry Manilow, but more like early Beatles, before Yoko Ono messed everything up. And not just to this Sacramento short sale agent, but every short sale across the nation is putting down her pumpkin-pie laden fork and giving thanks to the decision by B of A to do away with its third-party vendors like REDC for these short sales. With any kind of short sale, though, these miraculous changes don’t happen over night. As a result, we are stuck with REDC for a handful of Cooperative Short Sales still on the road to Pocatello.

I have asked negotiator, let’s call her Mao, through Equator over and over and over to clarify for us whether she is negotiating a Carmichael short sale as a Cooperative Short Sale because everything about this particular short sale has gone sideways. It’s not being handled at all like a regular Cooperative Short Sale. This negotiator has ignored all questions. Then, on the day before Thanksgiving, she gave us 24 hours to send her financials or she would close the file.

24 hours on Thanksgiving Day!

Yes, on Thanksgiving Day, instead of celebrating with his family, a seller scrambled to pull together financial documents he was promised he did not need to submit. I suspect part of this request is due to the fact that Fannie Mae changed its guidelines on November 1. But even so, it is inexcusable that a representative for Bank of America would purposely cause a borrower, a client of Bank of America, such grief on Thanksgiving. This negotiator has continued to ignore requests, too.

I will say, Mao, do you realize this is a preapproved Cooperative Short Sale? And she will say: Remove the incentive from the HUD. Again: Mao, are we on the same page that this is a preapproved Cooperative Short Sale? Instead, she will ask how much the seller is willing to contribute. She outta lay off the eggnog.

It’s a good thing that Bank of America is getting rid of REDC. It’s just a shame it’s taking them so long to pull the plug.