by Joshua Talayka

Created on: September 08, 2009   Last Updated: September 13, 2009

Bank of America: The Untruth about Short Sales

On August 18, 2009, Kimberly Dawson (Bank of America Home Loans Vice President-Group Operations Manager Short Sales) participated in an audio conference hosted by Campbell Communications which also had a guest speaker from Wells Fargo, (I'll save that one for another day). During the conference, Dawson gave an overview of Bank of America's Short Sale Timeline from start to finish. This overview suggests that a typical short sale with Bank of America shouldn't take any more than Ninty days to obtain a final decision on whether or not they will approve a Short Sale.

I am a Realtor, and have been working on short sale transactions for over three years now. In that time, I can honestly say that I have never received an approval from Bank of America in less then four months. Since the audio conference, I have asked several different customer service reps in the Bank of America Short Sale Department how long I can expect a typical short sale file to be processed. On average, the customer service reps told me they are seeing most files take anywhere from three to six months to reach a decision after it has been assigned to a phase 1 negotiator. I've seen files take up to ninty days to even get to Phase 1. I even had one customer service representative tell me not to expect any answer in less then 120 days after reaching Phase 1.

I currently have several short sale transactions awaiting approval from Bank of America. They are all at separate phases of the process, but each has already gone past the ninty days Dawson said is should take to get a final decision. In my opinion, this indicates to me one of two thing; either the individuals at the top of the company don't have any grasp on what is really happening down at the bottom, or the company doesn't want to disclose the actual facts when it comes to their short sale process.

I have talked with other agents across the country, and have read other articles and blogs posted by agents regarding short sales. The consensus I have been seeing, is that Bank of America is one of the most difficult and lenghthy companys to negotiate a short sale with, and many are deciding not to even take new short sale listings if it turns out that they will have to negotiate with Bank of America.

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