"Big Bank" Rant

So I get an accepted offer on a foreclosed property through Wells Fargo. It is listed with another agent in Orange County, located sixty miles away from the property. They literally put a lock box on it, hung a sign, and put it on the mls. That's it.

It sits for a bit, and there are some price reductions. I finally get an accepted offer, after the obligatory hoops--pre approval letters not only from the bank they plan to use, but from Wells Fargo as well. Earnest money. Background checks through a "money laundering database." Really? We do as instructed. Follow the rules.

The listing agent has done everything but come out and say he doesn't care a bit about selling this property. I suppose Sullivan County is too far, and he has bigger fish to fry, anyway every correspondence is slow in being returned, and apathetic when finally reached.

So the Wells Fargo attorney sends the contracts to my attorney, twenty four hours after the accepted offer, (I know, finally some speed int this deal) however, it happens to be Christmas Eve. Their time stipulations are two days to review and sign. Five days for an inspection, and fourteen days for a mortgage commitment. There is a fifty dollar a day late charge if these are not met.

Now keep in mind the holiday. Does it matter? Nope. My buyers happened to be out of the country. They countered with seven days to review and sign the contracts. Fifteen days for the inspection, and thirty for the mortgage commitment. What was the banks response? Unacceptable, The deal is off. "We are going to entertain other offers."

Meanwhile, the apathetic agent has allowed the property to expire off the mls.--currently not listed anywhere. There are no other offers. The house sits empty, and in disrepair. Lets kill the deal over fourteen days. This is such an example of big bank stupidity.

Now you are probably thinking, that surely there is someone along this chain of he-said-she-said that selling agents have to follow, that will have a bit of common sense, and believe me I have tried. The bank's attorney? Not my call. Listing agent? Not my call, (and I don't give a crap.) Trying to find that nameless person in Wells Fargo who does make the "call" is maddening. I get switched from department to department, and finally to a voice mail, that might as well not be recording, because no-one gets back to me.

I have heard many similar complaints about foreclosures and short sales from other agents. Now I know that this is my little world here in Sullivan County, but lets be really conservative, and assume that this is happening a fifty times a day across the country. My deal was for $200,000. Times that by fifty. That is ten million a day in bank lost revenue.

Stupidity at it's highest form. Take the bailout money banks, I can see why you needed it.