So last Friday I was able to help a family avoid foreclosure by closing on a successful short sale on their home before the home was to be foreclosed by the lender. They were literally a couple of weeks away from a Trustee sale on their home in the French Valley area of Winchester CA.
This was not the easiest of short sale in that there was a first with Wells Fargo, a second with OCWEN, plus a Federal tax lien. The most challenging part of the short sale was dealing with OCWEN. OCWEN is renowned in the industry for difficulty in working with them. First off they have moved their customer support center to India and there is a strong language barrier that needs to be overcome. Their reps read from a very specific script and anything out of the ordinary they have no idea on how to handle. OCWEN is the worst with getting hung up on and its very frustrating when you have been holding for 20 minutes and then a rep decides they don’t want to talk to you and they hang up.
The federal tax lien is something that I have heard from agents that they would not even attempt. There is a very straight forward process you must follow to be successful. They even expedited the process to help with getting closed before a Trustee Sale that would not be postponed. This process could not even begin until I had the short sale approval from both the first and second lenders.
So now I have the approval from the first and second lenders and I have the federal tax lien released. The last hurdle to overcome is that now there is five days from the expiration of the short sale approval from the first lender. You cannot under estimate the importance of working with an escrow company that knows the short sale process and knows what is needed to get a short sale closed. We literally completed what can sometimes be a 20 to 30 day process in just 5 days.
Along with having an escrow company that can move quickly you must have the right buyer waiting to close. It is very important to communicate constantly with the buyers agent so they are ready to move once all approvals have been received. The buyer was able to complete all inspections in time and get escrow and disclosure documents completed in a timely manner. They were able to get their funds into escrow in a timely manner so we can record on the 5th day completing the short sale.
Equity, or negative equity, we can help. So, if you or someone you know has thought about selling, please contact us right away to see what your Southwest Riverside County Real Estate Value is!