You would think that the mortgage industry, having basically driven this country’s economy into the ground, would take a few steps toward fixing the insane mess they have created, but my experiences over the last 3 months are proving that either they were WAY more messed up than I thought or that they just don’t care. Personally I’m leaning towards the latter of the two.
We’re in the process of finding a Loft/Condo in downtown Atlanta from the THOUSANDS of foreclosures that currently exist there. Here’s how all this goes…
Story 1. We find a great place, right on the park. Fresh on the foreclosure market. We make an offer, do the back-n-forth thing and come to an agreement. As the closing date rushes in, we run into a couple of snags that may require us to push out closing a few days. Now, the bank who owns the property, because they CAN, put in a clause that if we don’t close on-time it’s a $100/day penalty. They won’t budge on this at all. So we brace ourselves for $500-$1000 in penalty, and then 3 DAYS from closing we get a call that there are title problems on the unit and they can’t legally sell it. What the HELL?!? Seems they only foreclosed against one person, but there were two listed on the title, so the other person still legally owns it. Of course, they KNEW this while we were trying to push out our closing, but apparently they were hoping to resolve this as WE PAID $100 per day penalty. So that deal is poof, dead, gone. Moving on…
Story 2. We find another loft in a pretty exclusive & desirable building. The unit has been on the market for a LONG time as far as a foreclosure goes. Going into the unit, it’s no wonder why. The place shows like shit. It is filthy dirty (think FOOD IN THE SINK!), and could use some updating or at least a good coat of paint as well as simple cleaning. We place an offer on the unit, knowing the potential of it and how long it’s been on the market, etc. Simple stipulations are that it includes the DEEDED Parking spot and that they clean it. We get countered that they rejected our stipulations, and countered our price dropping theirs $4k. Now without going into too many details, the thing to understand here is that obviously nobody even LOOKED seriously at the offer before countering because if they had, they would have realized that the deeded parking spot is an inclusion that they really cannot skip. Instead they just whittle down their price a tiny bit in this stupid back & forth game. As I type, we’re still waiting to hear back on the 4th counter-offer.
In the meanwhile, we came to find that there is another unit in the same building that Story 2 is in. However, this other unit is FAR more desirable to us from a size, layout, parking and update perspective. Apparently the unit had been foreclosed on 3 months ago but there is no information available on it. So we spend a day digging through county court records and public notices and determine that Suntrust bank owns it. Great! Maybe we can make an offer on this or find something out while we’re waiting for the other unit to straighten itself out.
Story 3 (the crux of why I’m writing this article).
I call Suntrust bank general information line at: 800-786-8787. I talked to Karen and explained that I was trying to obtain information on a property that they own from a foreclosure. (I have ALL of the information available on it, including what Suntrust paid for it at public auction). She tries to put me on hold and promptly hangs up on me. Great… I call back and explain the same to Jesus who this time, successfully places me on hold while he digs up the information. Jesus comes back with their REO line of 877-746-8437. Okay, cool! Maybe we’re getting somewhere.
I call the REO hotline and it gives you two options.
Option 1 – “visit our REO property website at http://www.suntrustmortgage.com/reo” However, that URL doesn’t EXIST! I did find their REO website but the property I want isn’t listed.
Option 2 – “Leave a detailed message including your name, email address, telephone number and a DETAILED message”. So I opt for option 2. The system beeps and I start with my name. By the time I’m done with my name, the system interrupts me and says “You have 10 seconds to complete your message”.. WHAT THE HELL?!?!
I just don’t get it. Banks are up to their necks, drowning in bad debt and foreclosed homes but they seem to have ZERO interest in actually selling the damned things. Instead they just keep their hands out whenever our government decides to have a powwow on where to give money. HELLO?!?! JEFF HERE, I HAVE MONEY TO GIVE YOU WHICH CAN OFFLOAD SOME OF YOUR BAD DEBT!!
I guess my whole rant and frustration here just speaks to my naiveté when it comes to the state of the mortgage industry in this country. Who knew it would be this hard to SPEND MONEY…
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