BofA’s Matt Vernon Says It’s Getting Better at Short Sales & It Really Is!

Matt Vernon is the Short Sale and REO Executive for Bank of America.

He explained to a group of several hundred real estate professionals who handle distressed properties that BofA has had a paradigm shift, that they now see their borrowers as their clients rather than just their investors.

They are also working hard to get more efficient in responding to the huge number of short sale requests that are being transmitted to BofA each month. 

According to him, BofA had 67,000 short sales initiated.  This is compared to the 27,000 initiated in November 2009 or the 12 (yes – 12) that were approved in November 2007.

In explaining the trials and tribulations experience by BofA, its customers and agents trying to help their sellers, he explained that no one was prepared for the explosion of short sales that has occurred in the past couple of years.

Still skeptical about BofA’s commitment to change?  I was the first time I heard this speech a month or two ago on a teleconference.  However, in an attempt to help those of us with questions, Matt brought a group of 6 or 8 negotiators with him today and had them answer questions on individual files today, face to face.

I have spent this week trying to finalize a file so we could close this week or early next and was having troubles and being transferred from department to department and person to person and given answers that were not solving the problem.

Today, within 3 hours of speaking face to face with this BofA negotiator, I had received my finalized approval so we can close next week and an extension on our original approval.

Am I a believer?  I definitely believe that they are working to make changes and that Matt is very passionate about bringing about additional change and getting to his goal of less than 5% of decisions being made on short sales more than 60 days after initiation.