I now know why Residential Capital Corporation is closing down its Homecomings Financial unit. I have been in real estate for more than twenty-five years and have never been faced with such total incompetence let alone lack of veracity!
We are among those who purchased their home the right way'. We made a sizeable down payment, purchased a home we could afford and we insisted upon a thirty year fixed loan.
Our problem started when the real estate market crashed. Because my husband's life long career as a programmer/analyst had been outsourced to India (another BIG problem for Americans) I am the primary income provider; a fact that existed when we qualified for our loan. When the market went bad I was literally out of business. As hard as I tried I could not seem to close enough escrows to pay the bills.
On September 9 we listed our home and contacted Homecomings to apply for a short sale authorization. The value of our home has decreased approximately 28%. We supplied all our current financial information at that time.
After checking with Homecomings to verify their terms for approving short sales, we offered through the local Multiple Listing Service the 5% sales commission that Homecomings said it allows for those transactions. We offered 3% to the selling office (to encourage other Realtors to show our home, and 2% to my company. My broker likes to be paid and I need my share of those funds to help pay our moving and storage expenses. I also listed it on several on-line listing services.
We made certain that our home was kept show ready' at all times and I aggressively marketed it. I sent regular updates to Homecomings on the activity we were getting even though none were requested. They NEVER contacted us, except for collection calls. On November 25 we received an offer which I forwarded to Homecomings.
It took three months and countless calls and faxes before we had any answer. During that time I was REPEATEDLY told that we would have an answerin a few days. Several times I asked if there would be any counters to the offer we had submitted. I was told that the processors saw nothing in the contract that they would adjust or counter. After two months we found out that the Lost Mitigation Department was processing the wrong contract!
Finally, after three months during which we were able to keep the potential buyers committed to our home, we received word that Homecomings would accept the offer.
NOW, after three long, frustrating months, we get to the good part. As conditions to Homecomings accepting that offer:
1) Homecomings is defaulting on payment of its promised commission. I get no commission for my professional services (nor does my brokerage) so there is no money to move. We find this absolutely ridiculous since not only did I perform my duties as a Realtor in an extremely diligent manner but we know that many financial institutions understand the positions homeowners are in and are offering them funds to help them vacate their homes after short sales. I am not asking for any such help, only that I get paid for the efforts that I made as a Realtor. If I were not a licensed Realtor Homecomings would have had to pay another Realtor to perform those duties, a Realtor that may or may not have been able to keep the buyers loyal to this home.
Perhaps lenders like Homecomings are one of the reasons that Realtors are seeing so many homes vandalized by frustrated people losing their homes.
2) They want the escrow closed within twenty-four days or the buyers will face a fine of $33.49 for each day of delay. Only someone completely ignorant of today's underwriting procedures would even suggest such a time frame! One must ask the question: After stalling this transaction for three month's why the rush? Is it because they are now going out of business?
It is bad enough losing your home at our age, especially when we played by the rules' but to add insult to injury I don't get paid for my honest efforts as a professional. That is especially hard to take when our tax dollars are being used to bail out lending institutions.
You KNOW that those morons who process these transactions and make the rules ALWAYS GET THEIR PAYCHECKS! Many even get bonuses.
To sum all this up: I STRONGLY advise anyone dealing with what is left of Homecomings Financial to be very careful. Whether they are just incompetent or totally unethical is difficult to say but they are not good people to deal with and they reflect very poorly on their affiliated company, GMAC Home Loans and on Residential Capital Corporation who should NEVER have allowed them to go so bad before they closed them down.
Sampson
Goodyear, Arizona
U.S.A.
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