Short Sales - You Have The Power To Hold Banks Accountable

I want to begin this post by thanking the many of you who responded to my last blog post entitled The Golden Era of Short Sales and the End of Bank Tyranny. I also want to thank Active Rain for highlighting not just my thoughts but the deeply felt concerns that my fellow real estate agents expressed.

After reading through each of your posts, I was troubled by the sense of helplessness that many of us feel over the lack of response from Banks in dealing with Short Sales. I don't believe we in the real estate community who act as mediators between Sellers,Buyers and Banking Institutions ask for too much when we call for:

• An open dialog with banks and their investors
• Reasonable Time frames to be established for review and response to Short Sale offers
• Both responsible and realistic valuation of the Short Sale Property

It disturbs me how many horrific stories there are where Sellers with truly pitiful stories are being drug through the mire by the beaurocracy of banking institutions.

After contemplating the many concerns all of you expressed in my last post, I pondered how we could help those Sellers who are in the worst shape. By that I mean those who are in real crisis; those who have lost their sources of income, those who are dealing with catastrophic health issues, single mothers who are left with too great a load on their shoulders and other true hardship cases that are just trying to complete a Short Sale or Loan Modification so they can move on with their lives.

A common sentiment among many of you was that you can't count on government to bring resolve to these pressing issues. I want to at least acknowledge that government seems to be trying and time will certainly tell whether their policies provide relief for Americans who are hardest hit.

If government can't solve this issue, I asked myself who could? Then I remembered a story I read a little while ago where Bank of America came under public scrutiny for the predatory fees they were charging their poorest of customers who at times would overdraw their account by just a few dollars. The public response was so great that Bank of America backpedaled on their new policy and are repealing it next month. This prompted Chase Bank to likewise make changes to their overdraft policies.

My point is, when Public Focus was centered upon their predatory actions, they backed down, fearing a backlash of public support and inevitable loss of Profits. We all know that if there is anything in this world that will cause a Bank to pay attention...it's their profits.

I believe it was Edward Lytton who said, "The Pen is Mightier than the Sword!" When I think about how eloquent many of you are with the written word, especially here in Active Rain, it made me think, why can't we all use our writing talents to bring these hardship cases to light and expose the banks to public Scrutiny? After all, we are the ones who know best the heart wrenching stories of those hardest hit. I've seen how well so many of you articulate your thoughts in your posts...why don't we put these talents to greater use?

Couldn't we develop a forum that would expose to the world those legitimate stories of people who are suffering the greatest so as to cause the Banks to take responsive action? If they are forced to deal with the hardest hit cases, this might very well lead to universal policy changes among the different banks. As noted earlier, banks tend to follow suit with each other and if one changes for the better, perhaps the others will follow.

When it comes to where we might develop such a Forum, I cannot think of a better avenue than Active Rain to brings these issues to light. I must admit, I do not personally know any of the founders of Active Rain, but I'm willing to bet that some of you do.

Imagine a place where the public and news organizations could learn the truths of what the worst hit homeowners are dealing with when it comes to the insolent attitudes of Banking institutions. This would be a place where the weakest are given a voice by all of us who are working hard to help them out of a financially hopeless situation. Banks who are playing hardball with devastated homeowners could have the public spotlight placed on them for doing so.

It would no doubt require certain guidelines for posting and monitoring, permission of the Seller etc., but I think it could be such a force for good in helping our neighbors who are powerless against the banking behemoths. If Active Rain would be willing to help us, especially with their in depth knowledge of Internet publicity and exposure and technical knowledge of how something like this might be able to be incorporated into our stellar A/R community, well let me just say that rather than feeling helpless and frustrated, we could take up the 'Power of the Pen' to bring about some changes that could help our neighbors.

I am only a fellow Realtor with an idea and it will not have any power without the help of all of you. If any of you have access to the leaders of our Active Rain community, could you please ask if this is feasible? For all of you reading this, I would greatly appreciate your feedback on this idea whether it is positive or negative.

The more I think about this, the more I believe how powerful our stories could be upon the public consciousness and how our collective efforts might just provide the much needed help many of our fellow neighbors are desperate for.

Most Sincerely,

Tarris Rogers