In the wake of the devastating mortgage and lending crisis of 2008 and 2009, Bank of America has emerged as one of the last financially sound commercial and residential lenders in the country, and certainly the most profitable. They have done this by taking advantage of the new Obama Administration policies, ramping up their mortgage service programs, and trying their best to ensure they have a quick learning curve. One of the first steps, according to Bank of America officials, was doing their best to cut down on the time it took homeowners to get approval for and complete short sales. They have cut down their turnaround time from close to ninety days to having a reply for distressed homeowners in a week. (Wells Fargo has cut it down to thirty days.) In a short sale, a purchaser makes a specific offer, and the bank then does appraisals to decide what price it will be willing to accept. The problem is, in the old system, the appraisal process would take so long that potential buyers would often just walk away. Since the Treasury Department has detailed plans to officiate streamlining of short sale processes and provide standardized documentation and incentives to lenders, lenders are starting to opt for short sales instead of full foreclosures- which statistically save everyone money. Another item in the policy is the 'moving allowance' to homeowners, up to one or two thousands dollars for each American family that complete a short sale, helping to pay for relocating. And even before resorting to short sales, lenders are trying to reach as many people with loan modifications as possible. Bank of America has begun by expanding customer service departments and loss mitigation specialist offices, and lenders on the whole are becoming more responsive to homeowners. Homeowners, for their part, are starting to expect loan modification as their due, and that expectation has led to a lot of forced flexibility on the part of bankers. But the whole process of responding to the stresses of the recession has been a huge learning experience for all lenders and bankers. Realtors have to learn to deal with short sales, servicers have to learn to make good estimations, and agents must be trained to handle short sales. Everyone is learning on the fly. These adjustments throw the financial and housing industries into chaos, but ultimately will lead to a smoother, more universally beneficial result, by which both homeowners and lenders can be satisfied and find profit in dealings with each other.
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