Bank of America making Short Sales more like REO's

Bank of America is shifting direction with its Short Sale processes by utilizing a lot of the same procedures and software as their REO asset managers use. This seems to only be in test mode currently, with just a small segment of their files, but it does mark the beginning of the end of the dread we all have for these kinds of transactions.

Anyone who sells short sales knows that Bank of America is one of the slowest banks out there, so to see that they're one of the first to get on board with the streamlined short sale concept was something that everyone at The LAMB Group was very happy about. We probably have about a dozen or more BOA short sales and on more than half, we have offers. But they're just sitting there, waiting for the BOA SS process to run its lengthy course. Our nightmares don't go on for 6 or eight months like some horror stories I've heard, but we have seen these take as long as four months....and that's just not acceptable.

But they're trying and so I have to give Bank of America's Short Sale department some credit for that. Last week, we noticed a fraction of their files were transferred to what some of the BOA reps were calling "BofA Servicing." I'm not sure if that's their final name for it since their new servicing website is named differently and even that name, we hear, will be changing soon. Whatever Bank of America decides to call it, under this plan Borrower's received new account reps, new account numbers, and now The LAMB Group has an online portal with which to access account updates and can use for communications with the negotiators. What's even better is that this portal can act as a hub between all parties in the transaction, helping to break down barriers and make everyone more available to each other. We already offer something similar for all of our short sale listings in Charlotte NC but nothing on this level. I'm hoping that its implementation will make our short sale listings close much faster in the future and will lead the way for other major lending institutions as well.