The top emailed story on the New York Times website today, Short Sales Resisted as Foreclosures Are Revived, is over 2 days old. That it remains pinned as the top story to share is significant, especially to anyone in New York who is facing foreclosure or in a short sale. Bank of America has, after an absurdly short period of time, ended its moratorium on foreclosures and deemed that its house is in order to resume foreclosures. Aside from the field day that thousands of attorneys will have in the coming years with this, my thoughts are a mixture of dislike for the decision and sadness for borrowers who are in default with Bank of America.
The resistence to short sales is particularly unfortunate. The suspension was hoped to be a catalyst for making short sales a more viable option, but banks have yet to devote sufficient resources to streamline the process. The rationale is a fear of fraud, but fraud only accounts for a minuscule percentage of short sales- like 1 or 2 percent. The other 98 or 99% ought not to suffer because of it. The resumption of foreclosures removes any chances of positive change, unless the government steps in, which the Obama administration seems unwilling to do.
There is a silver lining to the story: The New York Times is finally getting interested in examining why banks resist short sales when they are so much of a better option for all involved. The Times is also starting to follow the money- banks do have some financial incentives, such as accounting practices which you or I could not do to write off a loss, which makes foreclosures more attractive.
Make no bones about it: in the absence of a government with a spine, banks will look at short term gain and little else. Changing their architecture to accommodate short sales is an expense and a learning curve, and they will resort to dumb rationalizations and red tape hell to keep the foreclosure train rolling.
This makes a savvy short sale specialist more of a necessity than ever. We are still batting .900, closing more than 90% of the short sales we list, and I think it is due in no small part to understanding who, and what, we are dealing with. Choose your agent wisely.
