Why I Love Bank of America & Countrywide

I just wish Valentine's Day were closer. I wait anxiously to declare my love officially for Bank of America (and Countrywide). And there is no better time than Valentine's Day to share that special moment.

If you are working with Loan Modifications or negotiating Short Sales you share my feelings I am sure. What an amazing group of people to work with. WAIT . . . you don't agree?! You say I must be crazy, driven here by long hours on hold and not getting anywhere. I beg to differ. There are some great reasons to love them. There really is some comfort in relying on their unreliability. So actually they are reliable because of their continued unreliability. Without fail, every single transaction negotiating with them has been a mess.

They do crazy things like the following . . .

• Provide approval letters that require you close in 7 days. Then conveniently after repeated calls and emails to correct this to something reasonable for all parties they don't respond. Until of course the 8th day and then tell you the file is closed due to non-compliance since we did not close per the approval letter's expiration.
  



• Conflicting answers from their customer service on follow up calls. Operator A states they have the short sale offer but no BPO is ordered. Even though we just let the BPO agent in the day prior. Operator B contacted the next day says "we have the BPO but we have no short sale package on file, please re-submit”.
  



• Weekly follow up calls are answered with 'everything is moving along, there are no new updates’. Then magically on another follow up call we are told the file was closed 3 weeks ago due to non-compliance. When asked what the issue was we find they emailed to a non-existent email address requesting documents they previously confirmed they did have and due to their typo and our ‘lack’ of response they want us to re-submit and start all over. When asked why all other updates stated it was in review and why were we not informed 3 weeks ago of the issue they had no answer.

Now I know it might sound like I am frustrated with them. But come on let us all agree that there is some real comfort in knowing from the start that none of this will run smoothly. Take hold of all your Zen-like powers and find your peace with it. Seriously if we went into our Bank of America negotiations thinking it would be organized and truly geared to the best bottom-line for the bank then we would freak when all hell broke loose. Bank of America (Countrywide) is the quintessential 'Poor Short Sale Negotiating Experience'.

Do enough of these and you will be primed for keeping your home owner and buyer agents calm. We routinely tell our Bank of America clients to go on with their lives the best they can while we work these files. We tell them this is not only going to be a bumpy road but we are getting ready to drive into the perfect storm of short sales. So buckle up, hang on, keep your hands and head inside the moving vehicle and we’ll get to our destination eventually. Sure we’ll be beat up, bruised and exhausted but we will get there. Sadly for Bank of America, and due to this experience, not only did they lose more money by how long the process took they have guaranteed that when this home owner is back on their feet they will NEVER do business with them again, EVER. Every single client of ours has made this exact same statement. Such a shame – But I still love you Bank of America, keep up the shitty work!

UPDATE: A tear rolls down my cheek as I add this update. B of A is actually starting to use REOTrans to start managing their short sales. It’s a trial right now but this might just upset my love affair with them in the long run. But that’s okay, there is always Chase ? (Read my next article on my love for Chase ?)