On February 12 I pointed out on this blog how Bank of America was requiring listing agents to lie and violate their MLS rules by keeping short sales as “Active” even after there was a binding contract to purchase the property.
It has come to my attention that Fannie Mae appears to be doing the same.
In a webinar hosted with the California Association of Realtors(r), Fannie instructs agents to list a property as “Active,” because “Other statuses such as ‘Pending’ may discourage buyers and other agents from considering the property and/or decrease likelihood of a competitive offer.
Slide 10 of the Fannie presentation is pictured below:
I am not going to re-explain why this is wrong and what’s wrong with it. The reader can go to bit.ly/Y71VOF for my prior article.
After a couple days of outrage from agents, brokers and boards, Bank of America “clarified” their onerous instructions. I covered that at bit.ly/YceBUc .
Now it is time for the same kind of reaction to Fannie in order to pressure Fannie to make a similar “clarification” (retraction) as Bank of America did.
In credit to pro-active agents, this looks like it first came up at www.theshortsaleguide.com/profiles/blogs/fannie-mae-webinar-reaction
What do you think? Are these agencies just ignorant about the details of MLS terminology or are they trying to manipulate the market?
UPDATE: February 22, 2013 — at this time the slides are posted at Fannie Mae Slides . I can’t guarantee they will remain there of course. The slides appear to be created by Fannie Mae and I do not claim any rights in them. The link is solely for informational and news purposes.
I called my MLS and filled them in on what is going on with Fannie and they told me that if I could find the name of the moderator from CAR that put this webinar on today, they would have their lawyer send them a letter letting them know who gets to make these rules and why. I see that you have a part of the powerpoint presentation here so I am wondering if you might have caught the persons name? When I went to get the slides, it had been taken down.Thanks,Judi
I am a frustrated agent working in a place called Dysfunctional Disneyland.
Today was a perfect example of a roller coaster ride of idiots at the wheel. I gasped more than once attending this (scary) webinar. I couldn’t believe or don’t want to accept that Fannie Mae’s clear intent is to manipulate the market. The very thing many short sale colleagues have suggested was right in front of me on the monitor. It started with the topic of “Valuation”. Some guy tried to defend how they come up with a “recommended value”. What a joke it was that he was (inadvertently) proving to us that Fannie negates their own BPO’s etc… Example: They throw out comps “they” think are anomalies. I am too pissed to revisit it again.
I was ready to turn off this webinar when they went to how they want us to not change the status until we are in receipt of an approval letter. Even during the Q & A part of the webinar when agents questioned them – they kept up with their crap and I was sure agents in CA were buying it. Didn’t Fannie get the “memo” from BofA about their big screw up? Thing are so messed up.
BofA and Fannie are not ingnorant….. they are hoping we are.
Patti, do you have the name of the CAR moderator? See Judi’s comment above. If you do, send it to me and I’ll pass it on to Judi. You can use http://www.ballardlaw.com/contact/
The Distressed Property Coalition works hard in Washington, D.C. on behalf of agents and investors involved with short sales, and particularly with Fannie and Freddie.
See http://www.distressedpropertycoalition.com and check out the ways you can support DPC. It has been effective in getting the short sale guidelines revised, yet we keep finding the ways that Fannie and Freddie try to get around new policies favoring short sales.
I believe you are right that BANA and Fannie are not ignorant, I just give them an editorial benefit of the doubt.
Judi, at this moment the following link works:
http://www.car.org/media/pdf/Fannie_Mae_Short_Sale_REP_Presentation_2013_0221_CAR.pdf
Also, I’ve asked Patti Lyles (above) if she can provide the moderator’s name. It is not on the slides.
Thank you and boy do I agree with you Patti!!!! I was dumbfounded at the blatant arogance of the Fannie crew on this webinar! When I spoke with our local MLS yesterday, they told me that they had just gone through this with Fannie when they had wanted total access to the MLS system. They had refused to give it to them and during the negotiation with them, they told me that Fannie was informed that the appraisal and BPO’s should be used to find values of properties and that these professionals did have access to the MLS data. The supervisor that I spoke with at the MLS was quite surprised that Fannie had decided to throw out the appraisals and BPO’s that they ordered(probably in order to fulfill this requirement) and decide on their own what value they want to give to a property.
I can not find this moderators name from CAR on this webinar yesterday but I do have the list of those from Fannie that were there and I will give this over to our MLS today so that they can have their attorney’s deal with them. I could really use the name of the CAR person that moderated this webinar yesterday if you have it Patti.