Sense of Urgency can Lead to Faster Lender Response Times

Today I’m going to talk about how creating a sense of urgency can produce faster lender response times with it comes to short sales. When a loss mitigation negotiator has 500 to 800 files to work on, almost every one of those files is seen as urgent to an agent. Foreclosure time lines may seem long, but getting an approval from the lender and then waiting another 30 to 45 days for the deal to close, there isn’t much time at all.

When you first get a short sale transaction, you must be on top of that file from start to finish. There is some waiting period, but that does not mean you sit around wondering if the lender has looked over your short sale submission. It is important that you follow up with every activity that needs to happen. If you show a sense of urgency to the lender and respond to all calls, letters and e-mails in a prompt fashion, the lender will most likely treat your file the same way. He/she will see that you are on top of your file and are doing everything you can to make sure the process is moving along. It will be much appreciated, as he/she knows he/she won’t have to spend too much time tracking you down when they need something from you.

As a best practice, every time you send something over to the lender, call to confirm that it was received. Every time you get an e-mail or phone call, respond to it immediately. If the lender says he/she will do something, call back to make sure it has been done. Even if the lender is in processing mode and you have given them everything they need, check back twice a week to check status on the file. If the lender thinks you are calling too often, just ask them when is the best time to call back to check on the file.

Do not be surprised if the lender says they are going to do something and they don’t. Well, here’s a real life proof of concept on how urgency is required when working on a short sale submission. Real estate agents submit a short sale file and there are 60 days until the estimated trustee sale date. The file is processed but with no approval, and there is only one week left before it gets sold at the courthouse auction.

Typically, lenders will not postpone a trustee sale until a few days before. The real estate agent calls the lender for a status update and is told that the file is being reviewed by the investors and a decision should be made in 10 days. The lender says they will postpone the trustee sale.

A few days passed and the real estate agent picks up a call from the homeowner to hear that they are being evicted as the house has been sold. What the real estate agent should have done was to call the courthouse before the trustee sale to confirm it has been postponed. If it has not been postponed, a call should have been made to the lender to notify them that this was not done. In this case, urgency and persistence was required as calls should have been made to the courthouse and the lender until confirmation was received that the postponement took place.

Now, you must also create a sense of urgency with everyone involved in the short sale transaction. If documentation needs to be collected from the buyer’s agent or from the homeowner, make sure you give deadlines and follow up on delivery. The faster you are able to turn things around, the smoother the transaction will go.

Try to be proactive and identify any issues that may arise and try to act accordingly to avoid them. For example, check with the buyer’s agent to ensure that the buyer has been pre-qualified, so that when an approval is made, the loan process will move along much quicker to close. Ask for an approval letter which can then be handed over to the lender. If the lender sees that a buyer is ready to move forward with financing, they’ll be more willing to make the deal happen.

Collect any documentation that may be useful in helping the lender make the decision. If a couple of months have passed since the short sale submission, collect updated copies of the homeowner’s financial documentation, as the lender may ask for these, because they want to make sure their situation has not improved, which is the homeowner. Also, if the financial documentation shows additional hardship, that will certainly help with your approval. If the comparable values have further decreased, that would be something you would want to send to your lender so they can see they need to expedite the approval process before things get worse. If they see values continuing to go down, they will see this as additional money lost, especially if the property goes back into the REO inventory for sale.