Short sale frustration in Vermont

By Brian French
Posted Wednesday, Jul 22, 2009

Recently,I have been working on a few short sales that have been extremely frustrating. A short sale is when the person selling a home owes more than what it is currently worth and the bank is willing to sell the property without them recouping the full amount owed. It is a long and difficult process that sometimes does not work out and the bank ends up foreclosing on the property. Normally, you would think that the banks would rather lose some money than gamble on reselling it once they have gone to the expense of foreclosure but that is certainly not the case. Like I said,I have been working on a number of these cases and have tried to get a couple of banks to respond to offers that have been presented on these properties. In one case,I have had 6 offers for over 3 months and the bank still has not responded to these offers. It is costing them, the consumer, and the tax payer lots of money each and every day that goes by without a closing taking place. In one instance, the United States Government bailed this bank out which is even more frustrating to me, because it is our tax money they are gambling with. A few weeks ago, I wrote our representatives in Washington, only because I don't know what else to do to speed up this process. It is agravating to say the least. In other parts of the country this process is happening much quicker, i Just wonder why it can't be the same in Vermont. What do you think? Brian