Frustrated Buyer Writes Letter to President Obama
A client of mine wrote a letter to President Obama today. He has been entangled in the short sale process for roughly 5 months. He is trying to buy a home at a very fair price (not trying to steal it) that has two mortgages. One of them is Bank of America and the other is Countrywide (Bank of America owns Countrywide). My client even hired an attorney to expedite the process. However, we still are no further along in the process after 5 months. If you have been involved with a short sale I am sure you can empathize with my client. You might find his letter interesting. With his permission I posted the letter below.
Letter to President Obama:
Dear President Obama,
I am currently entangled in a 5 month long real estate “short sale” purchase. For the first time in my 40 year life I have hired an attorney. Despite my efforts and patience I am no closer to purchasing this home than I was 5 months ago when the process started. During the five months I have heard everyone say the short sale process is ridiculous, flawed, dysfunctional, etc. but nobody has done anything about it. Maybe you can!
My suggestion would be to push a bill through requiring lenders to respond to a short-sale offer within 30 days with either an acceptance or a counter offer. If the lender does not respond then a judge/arbitrator would have the ability to approve/disapprove the sale. If a lender does not want to sell the house they can simply respond to the buyer’s offer with a counter offer that is really high. This sends the message to the buyer that the lender just does not want to sell the property for a loss and the buyer can move on to a different property. Currently, the lender simply withholds a response indefinitely and everyone involved in the situation sits in eternal limbo.
We, the American people, have poured billions of taxpayer money into saving these lenders from themselves only to have them do nothing to improve the real estate situation. I think the lenders owe us (that’s all of us, buyers, sellers, real estate agents, lawyers, construction workers, mortgage brokers, title companies, appraisers, local governments, etc.) some action.
According to my attorney, Bank of America only has 8 employees for the entire country responsible for negotiating these short sales. How can a company with billions of dollars on the books only employ 8 people for this? We need some pressure on these big companies to meet some reasonable timelines because their stalling tactics are only serving to stall our nation’s recovery.
I could give you plenty of details on my situation but in the interest of brevity I have omitted them because I believe they are no different than the thousands of other families that are experiencing this same situation. Please feel free to contact me for further information if needed.
You are the most talented man we have had as president for a long time and we all wish you well.
Name withheld
Sarasota, Florida.
You can read the letter here as well.
If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of cheap and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky?
If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent “Austrian language,” would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?
If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current on their income taxes, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to “Cinco de Cuatro” in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the fourth of May (Cuatro de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment?
If George W. Bush had mis-spelled the word advice would you have hammered him on it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoe as “proof” of what a dunce he is?
If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on “Earth Day”, would you have concluded he’s a hypocrite?
If George W. Bush’s administration had OK’d Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually “get” what happened on 9-11?
If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed just to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?
If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans, would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence?
If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have
approved?
If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10n years, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan’s holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved?
So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him the “most talented man we have had as president for a long time?” Can’t think of anything? Don’t worry. He’s done all this in 5 months — so you’ll have three years and seven months to come up with an answer.
I say if George W Bush was not President Americans would not have to face the mess we are having to now.
What do you say?
Marc:
Yes, your clients experience is the same I have experienced out here in California. You submit an offer on a short sale and it goes into a “Black Hole” – weeks go by and months and nothing. I always suspected that the banks were understaffed, but I never thought B of A would have only 8 people nationally. They have had more than three plus years to get staffed up, now. I just don’t get their thinking. Hope you client gets a response. btw – love the pic, from one of my favorite movies.
Marc -
This has been the toughest year yet for getting short sales approved. I had one bank lose my authorization to release information four times. We’ve lost more buyers this year than I successfully closed last year and speaking of the black hole; where are all the short sales turned foreclosures going – they are not coming back on the market – at least not at the rate they were.
Talk about going up the chain of command!
Joseph,
Seriously now, those comments are ridiculous. Has Obama been perfect, no. Has he done a good or bad job, that’s yet to be determined.
But to hear all the nonsense from the Republicans is just Nuts! Even though I’m a conservative sometimes I think that my part is going CRAZY. We look like fools if you ask me, especially when we just speak ignorance.
GW without question did a horrific job, at best. So lets not try and bring Our New President down to that level. We should want and pray that Obama succeed. However, it seems like there are two teams and that’s just DAM SAD!