Blog

Matt Vernon jumped into the eye of a hurricane when he agreed to take on the newly-created role as head of Bank of America’s short sale division in December of 2009. Matt came to Orange County on March 12, 2010 to share with a packed room full of realtors what he has learned in his short, but intense, time on the job and the plans he has for BofA short sales going forward.

To put things in perspective, we learned that just a few years ago, BofA processed fewer than 10 short sale requests per month and that this department was managed by a single individual. In contrast, there were 59,000 short sale requests in the month of February, 2010, managed by approximately 1,000 individuals, which will double to 2,000 this year.

Matt laid out some of the challenges faced by BofA. For starters, BofA does not own most of the loans that are being defaulted on and has to go out to the investors (of which there are hundreds) that own the loans to get their approval on short sales. Further, there were as many as 17 disparate systems that negotiators needed to access in order to communicate with the various investors and different departments within the bank.

To bring some semblance of order, Matt has redefined the “customer” as 1. Distressed Homeowners; 2. Realtors; 3. Lenders, and; 4. Buyers of Homes. This is a cultural change within the organization, as past thinking was that the investor was the customer (buyer of their loans).

In all, the audience found Matt to be smart and attentive and very much appreciated him taking the time to articulate how he plans to address a very difficult and important challenge.