Seattle Real Estate Blog by David Monroe

At this time last year, Bank of America was on my black list for short sales.  I would still work with short sale clients that had Bank of America loans, but I had to make an extra effort to mentally and emotionally prepare sellers for a process that could take six months to a year from signing the listing to signing closing papers.

Several months ago, Bank of America started using the Equator system (formerly REOTrans).  Equator is the technology platform used by many of the top lenders nationwide for handling bank-owned property transactions.  Equator built a short sale portal to be used by Bank of America (and eventually other lenders) to help streamline the short sale process.

While the transition to the Equator system had its challenges, Bank of America’s implementation of this online system for processing short sales has been one of the biggest steps in the right direction that I’ve seen from a large bank in the short sale industry.  That doesn’t mean there aren’t still a lot of problems with Bank of America short sales, but it is a massive improvement from where they were a year ago. 

Short sales that would have previously taken 6-8 months to negotiate with Bank of America can usually be completed within 60-90 days now when processed through the Equator system.  It can still be a painful experience at times, but it’s kind of like pulling a bandage off your arm:  It’s going to hurt whether you pull it off slowly or quickly, but isn’t it better to get the pain over with quicker?


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Authored by David Monroe, Real Estate Agent and Short Sale Specialist
Access Seattle area short sale help and foreclosure resources including selling in foreclosure, and 8 Ways to Avoid or Stop Foreclosure.
Considering a short sale?  Check out this Short Sale FAQ first.

Copyright (c) 2010 by David Monroe (Keller Williams Seattle Metro West)