Short Sale Software Platform
Perhaps you have heard of Equator, a short sale software platform used primarily by Bank of America. Recently, the real estate network has been abuzz with all sorts of real estate blogs about Equator.
If you are not working short sales but have worked foreclosures before, you may have heard of REO Trans. REO Trans was the software platform used by many asset management companies to service REO listings. You see, asset managers and REO listing agents were able to use REO Trans to communicate and process massive amounts of REOs very efficiently via the Internet and the Internet-based software platform.
Well, as the market began to change, REO Trans morphed their software platform into Equator, and you do not even need to travel to Ecuador, Brazil or Colombia to see it! Currently Equator is used by Bank of America for all Bank of America short sale transactions. It is also used by GMAC, but in a slightly different manner.
If you obtain a short sale listing and plan to negotiate the short sale yourself, than the first thing you want to do is find out who the lien holders are for the property. If any of the lien holders are Bank of America, than you will want to visit the Equator website. At the website, you will need to create an account. Once you have created your account, you can login and use the dashboard to initiate a short sale. What is great about the Equator system is that you receive emails and assigned tasks with deadlines for completion. For novice short sale listing agents, Equator can “hold your hand” as you negotiate the short sale.
Personally, I have read plenty of blog posts written by folks who were complaining about the former Bank of America short sale negotiation process. It was tedious, time consuming, and required significant expertise to navigate the bumps in the road to lien holder approval. I’ve also personally experienced telephone hold times in excess of one hour just to check status on a short sale file. The great news is that most transactions that go through the Equator process can be completed without a single phone call to the bank!
Personally, I love the Equator platform. Short sale approvals come much more quickly; in fact, one of my colleagues got an approval in just 24 days! So, if you have been a bit nervous about venturing into the short sale market because you have heard a few horror stories, you may want to reconsider. Things are getting better with the mighty Equator system.
(Sidebar: GMAC also uses the Equator platform. Currently, they are using it a bit differently. At GMAC, the negotiators initiate the short sale and then it appears in your Equator account. Whatever the case, the Equator system is definitely a plus when working short sales!)
Dawn
May 5, 2010 at 6:09 am
Equator is a wonderful platform, however I have a Bank of America short sale I am working and since the seller has a FHA loan, it can’t go through Equator. So unfortunately it is the same old Bank of America “no we didn’t get one of the pages that were faxed with the other 22 you sent that we do have” song & dance.
Justin Boland
May 6, 2010 at 10:41 am
There was a long and very entertaining thread on Active Rain where an Equator rep asked people for feedback. I left a few questions, and thus had all the replies sent to my inbox, and I quickly realized something that…well, it didn’t shock me at all: they were simply deleting the negative feedback. Not abusive, not profane, just people who were authentically frustrated with the system and listed the reasons why. I was getting these messages in my inbox, but they were deleting from the blog itself. (I was also seeing much angrier “why did you delete that??” follow-up messages, too, which obviously didn’t get to stay up for long either.)
Nick Reuter @ Short Sale Artisan had to work for two weeks to get a simple answer out of them about the existence of API tools. They were deleting his question!
I contribute this because I think it says a great deal about their approach and their interest in ANY of our feedback.
Buyer
August 31, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Equator as a software solution is buggy and lacks critical features. I develop software solutions for a living and happen to be a potential buyer in a short sale transaction and have witnessed multiple deficiencies with Equator.
* Once the transaction details are entered, there is no way to go back and correct or change any of the data entered.
* Automated workflow processes that are supposed to take place within hours take days instead.
* Uploaded files nearing completion have simply disappeared, requiring agents to completely start over again with the process.
It is remarkable to me that one of the Planet’s largest banks uses Equator when it is so buggy given the astronomical costs they must be incurring. Amazing!
Hugo Albert
March 2, 2011 at 5:48 pm
Do you know what the solution to solve this issue is. Currently I know of 3 agents including myself whose transactions have dissapeared several times. Since they started dissapearing from equator we have not been able to close any transactions at all with Bank of America. I have spent months trying to contact many departments at B of A as well as Equator and no one seems to know the problem. They all tell you to initiate the transaction again but it is no help. Contacted an attorney he said he cannot help.
Melissa Zavala
March 2, 2011 at 7:43 pm
One thing that I would pay attention to is the due date for a specific task. Many tasks in Equator have due dates. If you do not meet a due date, the file can be closed. I’m not sure if that is what happened in the situations you describe, but I have heard of similar situations and it was an issue with the due date. Hope that helps.