What I would tell foreclosure and short-sale negotiators if I could address them all.

  I just read an interesting article by an AP Real Estate writer Michelle Conlin, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101208/ap_on_bi_ge/us_foreclosure_wrong_people?source=patrick.net#yn-story
where she gives a glimpse into some of the personal stories of people who have been wrongly caught up in the foreclosure cyclone rampaging across the country. She writes about people who have been caught in the path of the lending industry chaos even though they didn’t have any payment delinquency or reason for the bank to foreclose on them.
     As shocking as these stories are, there are thousands of other stories out there of folks who are getting just as bad or even worse treatment because a job loss, retirement, illness, or other valid hardship reason left them unable to make their home loan payment on time.  If you have been watching the news lately, you know that a lot of those kinds of stories are now coming to the attention of lawmakers and the media.  Hearings in the Capitol have exposed the lack of professionalism and lack of personal regard by our top lending institutions for the individuals being swept up and destroyed in the foreclosure tornado. Articles like the one by Ms. Conlin give the issue real names and real faces and hopefully will stir some public outcry.
   As a Realtor I have seen a LOT of short-sale and foreclosure processes in the last 5 years. No, I haven’t worked for a bank as an REO agent, I have tried to help owners navigate the modification process, and if that fails, help them avoid losing their home to foreclosure, lose the remnants of their good credit and often try to help them avoid losing self-respect.  What I have come to understand though is that the chance for a family to avoid foreclosure and successfully complete a short-sale is entirely in the hands of bank negotiators who are over burdened with the volume of their work and often unfamiliar with the variations in valuations in different parts of the country. Articles like Ms. Conlin's illustrate how some employees process paper and never think about the lives of the individuals that paper represents. The recent news articles about the “robo-signers” who are simply rubber stamped foreclosure warrants without ever reviewing files seems to more than validate my own conclusions that this is a widespread problem. I have my own set of at least a half dozen stories about homeowners lives being ravaged by inconsiderate and down right awful bank representatives.
    Some articles we find in the media have pressed forward with the attitude that many of the people defaulting on their loans are taking the easy way out and/or abusing the system. What is usually not addressed in these hard-line attacks on distressed homeowners is that many homeowners have been working against a wave of uncooperative, misleading, and sometimes directly hostile bank employees and policies.  If I could share anything at all with those decision makers inside the banks who have that attitude, I would tell them that I have yet to sit down across a dining room table and find a family that isn’t truly traumatized about the prospect of losing their home.  Usually, by the time I am called, it is almost inevitable that they are going to be walking away without a single penny no matter whether they are able to successfully negotiate a short-sale or ultimately let the bank take the property in foreclosure. If  I could, I would tell every bank employee who deals with distressed properties to remember that a house with a mortgage or trust deed loan isn't just a house...it is somebody's home and inside that home are people who are probably pretty stressed out and traumatized. And maybe, just maybe, it isn't their fault, and it isn't their intention to contribute more to this national foreclosure nightmare.