After months of chasing a short sale, frustrated buyer “Kevin” wants to know if he should walk
Having endured more than half a year of short-sale hell and counting, Kevin is one step away from buying a half decent single-family home at a price almost unheard of now in Greater Boston.
But it's turning out to be one very long step indeed.
Kevin, who works in the digital publishing industry, is waiting on a green light from the bank that hold's the seller's second mortgage so he can buy a home in the Boston neighborhood of Roslindale for $233,000.
And he just may make it - that is if the whole thing does not blow up at the last minute, with our would-be buyer so frustrated after months of inexplicable delays that he is musing about legal retribution.
I say hang in there Kevin. But yet I am not the one who has spent months getting jerked around by the bank and by a seller's attorney who, at least from Kevin's decription, appears to be out to lunch.
If nothing else, it shows the lengths buyers sometimes have to go around here to get a home at a relatively "affordable" price, one, mind you, that would still buy you a palace out in Kansas City.
How frustrating has this been for Kevin? Well the last seven months haven't been spent haggling over a price, but waiting on the banks, with our friend having put the home under agreement in the fall of 2009.
To boil everything down, Kevin's problems are two-fold - the seller's attorney and the bank that holds the second mortgage on the property.
The seller's attorney, by Kevin's account, has been unresponsive to the point of negligence, sitting on key paperwork at the risk of blowing up the whole deal.
However, the bank holding the second mortgage is now shaping up to be the last big obstacle, and needs to sign off before Kevin can finally close.
He was initially told the New York-based bank would sign off within a couple days, but of course, we are talking bank time here, so a couple days could mean anything.
And when Kevin recently wrote to me again, true to form, a couple weeks had already gone by with no word from the bank. In fact, the seller's attorney, finally leaping into action here, attempted to track down an answer, only to be told by a clerk at this lumbering financial ground sloth that no such file existed!
"So much for the so called short sale reform," Kevin writes. "It's unbelievable how unaccountable these banks are, and what they continue to get away with."
Along the way, the lease on Kevin's apartment in Roslindale has expired, forcing him to beg for an extension from his reluctant landlord.
He's also put down serious money as well - $900 to pay for an attorney and a home inspection and $12,000 in two deposits.
Despite the frustrations and the outrageous behavior Kevin has had to deal with, I would argue he should put on a full court press and see this thing through.
But enough of my advice. What's yours?
