Another Short Sale Closed Yesterday!

This one was a BATTLE. Lots of calls. Lots of e-mails. Lots of faxes. And dealt with a lot of stupidity. Yup, you guessed it, another short sale with... Ocwen!

This was also my first experience with SLS - Specialized Loan Servicing.

The owner, attended one of my short sale seminars and afterward told me his story. He was listed with another agent in town. They even had an offer on the property. But Ocwen kept refusing the purchase price (due to HORRIBLY bad opinion of value from an REO agent) and scheduled the dreaded trustee sale. Ocwen refused to move the trustee sale. The homeowner asked if I could do anything after hearing my seminar. I told him I would do my best, if the agent didn't mind cancelling the listing, and that I thought I could postpone the trustee sale date, because I had done it before. The agent agreed because he couldn't get anywhere with Ocwen. I am not faulting the agent AT ALL. Ocwen is very stubborn to deal with. I even asked for advice from another short sale agent out of state. He replied candidly... "get ready to make enemies!"
The trustee sale date was late May. I demanded it be postponed. They refused. I told them they had bad value info (Thanks to outdated tax websites, Ocwen thought the property was worth $377k. Our offer was $250k and there was NO way anyone would pay over $300k for this property.). I persisted and poured out my all to a supervisor, sent him comparables, and told him the BPO (broker price opinion) agent did NOT enter the property.
THAT CAUGHT HIS ATTENTION.
He said he did. I told him the owners did not let ANYONE into the property besides the agents showing it, and there was no lockbox for him to sneak in with. He was silent.
WIN!
He postponed the trustee sale date back a little over a month. I had until late June.
I resent (yay...) the entire package and offer again. They ordered another BPO. This time the agent DID go to the property, however he used a comparable FROM THE MOST LUXURIOUS GATED COMMUNITY IN TOWN WHICH WAS OVER 15 MILES AWAY! Now Ocwen thinks the property is worth $330k. Uhm, NO!
Fought with them the entire month. Even called the trustee (the attorney appointed to sell the property). Resent comparables to show their value was way off. Down to the wire AGAIN (I call the day of the trustee sale date the "11th Hour").
Postponed. Again. Remember, Ocwen's policy is "we do not postpone trustee sale dates."
This time the trustee sale date was even CANCELLED. NO SALE DATE! YES!
I still fought with them on the value. They refused to move from the BPO's value, even though I showed them how WRONG it was.
"What if I sent you an actual appraisal from a licensed home appraiser?"
The idea shocked the person I spoke with. "Ok, send us the appraisal."
The seller ordered an appraisal. It took her many days to complete (this was a very unique property and area- a large custom built house on an acre along a hillside surrounded by regular size homes on regular size lots and a mobile home park. The comparables were ALL over the price range.). She appraised it for quite a bit less than $300k, but more than $250k. I didn't entirely agree, but it was better than $330k or $377k!
Ocwen took forever to update their value, but they finally did, just after they scheduled another trustee sale date- 8/22/11. On July 25, 2011, they gave me short sale approval, needing to close on 8/17/11. FHA loan closing in less than 25 days in California? What, the lending company has NO OTHER loans to do???? Good grief Ocwen!
The lender went as fast as they could and got all the way to loan docs by the 17th.
"Ocwen, we need an extension!"
"Nope, we gave you enough time."
The battle of words that proceeded from 8/17 until 8/22 have been some of the most heated in my career. Every day I spoke with people who wouldn't look past the silly rule on behalf of Ocwen. I even talked with the assistant to the Vice President of Ocwen, even she wouldn't grant me an extension.
8/22/11 was the hardest "11th Hour" ever. I was up at 6 AM PST dealing with people in Florida and India. Emails, phone calls. On and on it went. I was guaranteed all hope was lost.
I'm guessing the info I sent to the trustee was worth it. He postponed the trustee sale until 9/7/11.
ANOTHER POSTPONEMENT. That makes THREE from the company who NEVER postpones their trustee sale dates. Whew! After dealing with idiocity again (my request for the short sale approval letter to be extended to close was denied because it was "too close to the trustee sale date" to perform a short sale), I finally got the approval extended until 9/2/11. Dealt with what SLS needed to close, and we closed the deal on 8/31/11. YES!
My client, other than the cost of the appraisal, did not have to contribute ANY money to close the deal. Since the bank would not take any house payments from him during the short sale, I was able to save my client thousands of dollars and another 3 months to move to a different home.

Do you think we could be of service to you? Call 661-617-4469 to reserve a spot at one of our upcoming short sale seminars, or to schedule a private one-on-one consultation with me, to see if a short sale is right for you.