When the Bank is the Seller

It is no secret but some of the homes on the market are owned by banks and the number is rising, and will continue to rise.

It is going to take some time to sell the bank owned properties.  It is worse than it looks because banks do a lousy job selling the real estate they own.  They are in the business of lending money in exchange for a lien on the property and you would think they would have a system for liquidating property when they end up owning it.

They often hire Realtors, but banks make lousy clients.   Buyers make offers but the person at the bank that needs to approve, or accept the offer is slow to respond, got fired last week or is on vacation or an extended lunch break that lasts for days.  The buyer gives up and moves on.  Buyers are hard to find these days, and have plenty of homes to choose from, why would they wait?

Buyers need to understand that when making an offer in a bank owned property it can take weeks to get the offer presented and then accepted, or rejected.  They don't seem to negotiate offers like other sellers do, they just accept, or reject and wait for a better offer.

Recently while dealing with a bank on a short sale I could not reach the employee in charge of the file.  I was told that he was the only one that I could talk to about the particular property.  His voice mail box would not accept  messages, because it was full.   He was on vacation, but I had no way of knowing that.

I asked to talk to his supervisor but was told that the employee has 48 hours to respond to a voice mail message or a fax, bank policy.  I explained that I could not leave a voice message because his box was full and that the fax numbers I had been given had also stopped working.   Honestly I have three fax numbers, and it often takes 6  hours to send a fax.  My machine tries each number and keeps dialing until one goes through.

They also told me that they are short staffed.  Go figure.  Some in the mortgage industry are being laid off.  There are always people who need jobs.  Sorry you don't get my sympathy on that one, real estate is not for wimps.   In the real estate industry we just accept the way banks sell property even though each of our real estate contracts say "time is of the essence".  The bank I recently dealt with did a few things that are outside of our laws as they pertain to real estate transactions.  They seem to think that Minnesota laws do not apply to them, but they do.

There really isn't any way that the banks are going to be able to sell the property they now own.  I think they should come up with another plan. 

Photo - Smith Avenue High Bridge.