Spank the Bank! Confronting the Biggest Bully in the Neighborhood!

It is an unspoken reality that for those of us making our living in the real estate industry, we unfortunately continue to have to work in the "short sale" arena. I say unfortunately for a number of reasons, but first and foremost is the fact that as realtors we see firsthand how traumatic it is for the homeowner and the buyer when a short sale transaction becomes a casualty of disorganized corporate banking staff and understaffed bank short sale offices.
The issues of the short sale "nightmare" were, and continue to be, promulgated almost specifically by the banks themselves. It has created a growing and aggressive stealth movement towards forcing the banks to start being good neighbors with the real estate industry.
Anecdotally, in two very recent short sale transactions with major banks, (the lien-holders of the respective properties), none of the professionals on the realty side involved with the transaction, (realtors, title agents or closing coordinators), could get anyone at the bank's short sales offices to respond to communications or queries of any sort. Phone calls, emails, faxes, and even an outreach by courier... "Holy Foreclosure Batman, I smell a rat!"

In one case the short sale price had been approved by the bank, the buyer had made a full price offer, the contract was fully executed, the home was vacant, (on a very short leash for foreclosure), and we still could not get the bank to respond! For two months we could get no answer of any sort from the bank or their representatives! It is an extremely unfortunate, but well known issue, (there is no doubt that all of the realtors out there are shaking their heads with the same nightmare stories of their own)... it's got to stop!
Approaching the point at which this particular home was about to go on the chopping block at the county courthouse, the selling agent, (and myself on the buyers side), decided to take matters into our own hands and become more "proactive" at getting the bank's reps to respond. We made a very aggressive effort to reach out to the people at the bank's senior management level who COULD make a decision, while also convincing them of the need to respond.

Drafting an email to the CEO of the bank, along with a number of members of his board of Directors, VP of Short Sales, and numerous other banking officials, we started moving forward in short order to alert these officers to the shenanigans of their local office. After looking over that email with a fine tooth comb and making a number of changes, the email was sent to all of the bank officials and board members, copying the local bank short sale reps, (remember, the ones who refused to respond to our queries).
In a matter of hours, literally, after sending that email, we had numerous calls from the bank CEO's office wondering why we were having problems and what they could do to help. Due to this "re-energized" focus on this case we ended up closing the sale only days later... after two months of senseless inactivity and non-response on the part of the bank office assigned to handle the case.

This particular situation ended up working out for the buyer and seller, but unfortunately it was just one of thousands of these cases occurring daily nationwide. The big banks and their short sales offices literally BULLY everyone involved in a short sale transaction, from realtors to title and closing agents, to the homeowners themselves! Why?... well, for the same reason a dog chases its tail, because they can! They know they can just refuse to answer any queries in reference to a particular transaction, and there is very little, if anything, that anyone in the real estate industry could do about it, (up till now). Think about it. What other phone numbers would you call? What other fax number would you use? What other contact point do you have? You all know the drill, and it's not pretty.
Remember how we hated bullies in grade school? To be more specific, who do you know that doesn't hate a bully? I always have and always will. Realtors and others in industries dependent on real estate sales must come together as a group to put pressure on our elected representatives to create better legislation to force banks to behave! We cannot continue to allow the biggest bullies on the real estate block to continue making their own rules to the detriment of the rest of the country and entire industries.
Obviously, the banking industry hasn't received the message loud and clear that the citizens of this country are sick and tired of the crass, unresponsive way in which banks are handling their affairs... and specifically in this case, the administrative issues and transactions with short sales.

Short sale homeowners are certainly not happy that big corporate banks earning billions of net profit per quarter, are having their homes foreclosed on, in many cases, due to the shoddy, unprofessional work ethic, and haughty bank employees simply refusing to respond to realtors, title agents, closing coordinators and homeowners.
Obviously not all bank employees are "haughty" and / or have a poor work ethic. Unfortunately, I haven't worked a short sale yet, nor have I spoken with a realtor who doesn't agree that in almost every case at some point in the game one of those "special" bank employees ends up being an integral part of why the transaction is not moving forward.