Bank of America Short-Sale Process Revamped, Improved

Bank of America made some changes to its short-sale procedures which are supposed to shorten decision times on short-sale offers to 20 days, down from 45 days or longer.

Bank of America’s short-sale management platform, Equator, was revamped and now enables short-sale negotiators to conduct tasks like document collection, valuations and underwriting simultaneously. In addition, when buyers walk/back out of their contract, agents will have 5 days instead of 14 days to submit a backup offer.

As part of the change in their short-sale approval process, Bank of America is requiring a new third-party authorization form for short sales initiated as of April 14, 2012. In addition, there are now 5 specific documents which are required to process short sales initiated with an offer. Once these five specific documents have been submitted, Bank of America should have a decision made on the short-sale in 20 days.

If you’re a homeowner thinking of doing a short-sale or a buyer considering purchasing a short-sale, I’d be happy to give you the details and chat more about the short-sale process - click here to contact me.

Decrease in Loudoun County Short-Sale, Foreclosure/Bank-Owned Properties For Sale

The number of Loudoun County short-sale and foreclosure/bank-owned properties for sale has decreased significantly over the past few years. This is an important fact because it speaks to the health of the overall real estate market in Loudoun County. As you may know, the less the number and percentage of short-sale and foreclosure/bank-owned properties for sale, the better the real estate market typically is in general.

So here are the numbers…

• The number of new short-sales listings in Loudoun County went down by 42% from 2009 to 2011
• The number of foreclosure/bank-owned properties in Loudoun County went down by 53% during the same time.

And here it is broken down by year…

2009

• Short-sales made up 19.2% of all properties listed for sale in Loudoun County
• Foreclosure/bank-owned properties made up 9.6% of all properties listed for sale in Loudoun County

2010

• Short-sales made up 14.6% of all properties listed for sale in Loudoun County
• Foreclosure/bank-owned properties made up 6.3% off all properties listed for sale in Loudoun County

2011

• Short-sales made up 11.1% of all properties listed for sale in Loudoun County
• Foreclosure/bank-owned properties made up 4.5% of all properties listed for sale in Loudoun County

These are refreshing numbers to see after the chaos of a market we’ve had in the latter part of the last decade. These numbers and trends along with other local real estate market statistics and “street reports” backs-up the sentiment that the worst is behind us and that the local market has and is continuing to improve.

Happy July 4th!

Hope everyone has a great July 4th weekend!

-Danilo