I think it was the day I had to write my fourth “Hardship Letter” for the bank that I really lost it. That hardship letter was addressed to everyone from the President and Barney Frank to my Congressmen and the President of the bank I was dealing with. I should see if there is a way to attach it somewhere here for your reading pleasure! My former Realtor (she and I parted ways after this) sent it back wanting just the facts. The facts? No emotion? Is there a form letter for this? If she had exhibited either humor or compassion she would still have the listing, but sometimes we just need to vent a little. Getting three letters a day from lawyers, banks, everyone wanting a piece of me, sometimes I just have to let it out. It actually was quite funny….I should have sent it.

Somehow being asked not once, but four times, to document my pain and agony, to prove that I am still in a horrible place, was the final straw for me. The bank had a contract for my home for two months that they had yet to look at, and they were still asking for things that had been sent to them many times. The idea that this was just something for someone to take a peek at once a week made me furious with all of them. They are going balistic over one “possible” case of swine flu and closing schools in anticipation of a crisis….but here are thousands of us in desperate straights waiting for attention and that never gets to the press or anyone who seems interested in solving the problem we are facing. The lack of decision-making people at the bottom has compounded an already terrible backlog of homes in Short Sale Hell!

Realtors hate to even show these homes as 80% of them will never get a response to a contract and eventually float into foreclosure. You can hardly blame us. If we have a buyer who needs a home in a month or two, there is no way a short sale will fit the bill. The price listed is pretty much grabbed out of the air as one they hope will be close to what the bank will accept, but often it is just that they need to get a contract before the bank will do a kind of appraisal to give them a real price. That price may be way higher than the one on the contract, or that buyer may have already walked after waiting so long.  Most buyers have a lease running out or school starting or some reason that time is important.

I keep thinking that if the banks would just take .75 on the dollar on any of these homes they will get far more than they do after it has spent a year in the foreclosure process, appliances and A/C not working, maintenance not being done, lawyers fees adding up. It makes no sense at all that they are procrastinating to the degree they are while we all head toward not only foreclosure but probable bankruptcy as well. But no one is asking me how to solve the problem, or any Realtors for that matter. Gee, we might just have a solution! Everyone in a real estate transaction is paid on commission, only when it closes. If the banks would put the employees in charge of short sales on commission only I bet we would see the inventory flying!