We all know that short sales can take much longer than traditional real estate transactions. I feel like I just closed the granddaddy of them all. Before you say "a short sale should never take this long", keep in mind that I've been through numerous 3rd party negotiators who claimed to "have a system", and they didn't. A few people even "knew a guy at Chase"--not the right guy, apparently.
A lesson learned: Try to memorize your client's information. As crazy as it sounds, by the end of this process I could rattle off my clients' loan number, last four of social security number, mailing and home addresses without hardly thinking about it. Otherwise, you've got to have that file attached to your hip.
It can be difficult, but when someone from the bank calls, you have to talk to them right then. You may not get them back on the phone for two weeks.
I've been working for over two years with these home sellers. Long story short, we had a beautiful Lake Washington water-view home under construction, and my owner's GC/builder went belly-up. WaMu didn't like the looks of things, cut off the construction loan, and we all had a shell of a $3 million home on our hands with no funds to finish it.
In the meantime, Chase swallowed up WaMu and our odyssey began. Following the letter of the law, we submitted an offer from a buyer, loan mod packages, short sale documents, comps, authorizations over and over. Every month or two, the group managing our loan would change and we'd be back to stage one. The simple fact is that 99% of the folks at any bank don't know what to do with a construction loan, and when they finally got done shuffling our stack of papers they would realize it.
On to the next representative. I was told once/month that they didn't know who I was, or that I wasn't authorized on the account (we sent the authorization in a half-dozen times). No one had voicemail. No one would give us their email address. This was about the least-organized business process I had ever been through. This went on for the first 18 months, and through over a dozen different contacts at Chase. Many called themselves negotiators. They were not. After submitting an offer from our third set of buyers this summer, we finally found someone interested enough to look at our file thoroughly. More BPOs were ordered, our offer rejected, new offers submitted a handful of times. Our buyers were saints--they hung through nearly 6 months of negotiations.
In the past two weeks, we got lucky and got an All-Star at Chase on our file. He was prompt, professional, answered emails immediately--in short, I was shocked. Everything was in line for closing, and then the loud "thud" of a Chase approval landed on my desk--but it wouldn't clear the seller's personal lien, leaving them open to pursue a deficiency. After a bit more wrangling (my clients were working with a real estate attorney regarding the deficiency) to clear my sellers' personal lien, we were clear to close--but only by the 30th of the month.
After two years of negotiations, we were given two days to close. As insane as it was, it had to happen. Our escrow officer, Pam Curtin at First American, herded the cats into line, wire transfers flew at breakneck speed and attorneys scratched out mechanics' lien releases. Everyone skipped work to get to banks, attorneys' offices, and escrow for the closing. I'm still shocked, but very happy for these sellers and buyers. Everyone can move forward. It's also nice to know that this shell of a home will now be finished, and the neighbors will be happy to see their street's attractiveness restored in the near future.
Once in a while, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and a happy ending on a short sale. Just don't expect it to come easy. (A special thanks to Jeff Kipper for helping me hold this transaction together.)
