About West Palm Beach's Century Village

I finallly understand why banks and other mortgage lenders are scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to claw their way up to daylight. If my experience dealing with a short sale in Century Village, West Palm Beach is any indication, these lenders have a very long way to go.

The property in question is a small one bedroom, one and a half bath 738 square foot condo in the 55+ community of Century Village. My unfortunate client bought it without benefit of a Realtor's advice in 2006 for $74,000. Her loan on the property is about $51,000.

A series of medical misfortunes left her unable to work and without means to pay the mortgage. We listed the property about six months ago for $65,000 though its value is much less. Similar units sold comp out to about $34,000. This is not an uncommon story in today's real estate market.

Lo and behold, we get an offer for the property for $36,000!! And a cash deal no less.

Enter the mortgage company. Three weeks into the process, 12 phone calls to Wells Fargo later, we are still not authorized to even discuss a transaction. We have faxed them authorization from the seller, the seller has called Wells Fargo to authorize our participation in the transaction and we still have not reached first base with Wells Fargo.

"You may have faxed the authorization, but it is not in the computer," is the stock answer. Each time we call we get a different answer to the same question. We need written authorization, we need a power of attorney, a three-way conversation with Wells Fargo, me and the seller would be fine. And the clock keeps ticking.

This same company that was jumping through hoops last year to lend more than the value of the property, will spend thousands more putting the property into foreclosure, rather than help the process of a meaningful short sale that will stop the bleeding on both ends.

The bottom of the barrel just got deeper.