Nationstar Mortgage: We Won’t Help You Until you Stop Paying Us

What?

Yep.  That’s the conversation I just had with a customer service representative at Nationstar Mortgage.  “The investor will reject all attempts for a short sale if the seller is not delinquent on their mortgage payments.”

As of Wednesday, August 25th – A quick follow up note on this: The loan servicing company is hired by the investor who owns the note on your house and therefore dictates the terms of the short sale. Fannie Mae has in fact begun requiring that home owners be 30-days past due before they’ll even look at the prospect of a short sale.

Oh really?  That investor is Fannie Mae.  Fannie Mae told you that?  I don’t think so.  Fannie Mae backs most of the mortgages in this country.  Nationstar is simply a servicer.  Look, I understand that policy and procedure is designed to streamline processes, but we are human, and most of the time the policies and procedures are future-solutions to current problems.  In other words, this is a living and breathing system of short sales that is constantly changing.  The system doesn’t respond well to policies that out-date themselves the minute they’re written.  There’s nothing more aggravating than dealing with someone who follows ridiculous rules.  I’m okay with following rules that make sense, but whomever handed down this policy is attempting to accomplish one thing.

Banks will tell their customers that they have to be behind on payments in order to trigger fear of damaging their credit so the customer will continue to make the payments when it’s impossible for them to do so.  It is a collections practice, and it’s deceptive.

So, according to Nationstar, it would be in their best interest for me to recommend to my client that they stop paying their mortgage, thereby reducing Nationstar’s income, allowing them to live freely in their home, until Nationstar incurs the expense of filing a trustee’s sale notice, and potentially losing a buyer and going to foreclosure.  Makes sense to me?!

Update as of July 13th 2011:  Not only does it make no sense, but MARS disclosures now require us to include the following disclosure in all of our communication and advertising.  “If you stop paying your mortgage, you could lose your home and damage your credit rating.”  Really FTC?  Thanks for that morsel of brilliance.

This could be a multi-thousand dollar mistake on their part.  As a short sale specialist, it’s my job to break through the front lines of ignorance by locating the person who actually makes decisions.  That’s what I intend to do, because I will not be advising my client to damage their payment history.

This is a prime example of someone saying no in an environment that needs solutions, not roadblocks.  It’s also one of the reasons short sales take so long.

Similar Topics

• February 1, 2012 -- Who Pays the Commission on a Short Sale
• July 21, 2011 -- Special Listing Conditions
• January 15, 2011 -- The “Should I Short Sale” Chart
• August 18, 2010 -- When is an Offer on a Short Sale Too Low?
• August 6, 2010 -- When Do We Start the Short Sale Process?