FAIL
The financial market is melting down. LIBOR was up this morning. The “Credit Crunch”. Short sales. Foreclosures. The list goes on and on.
Let’s face it. There is a lot of doom and gloom out there.
6 semester hours of college accounting and 9 hours of economics do not make me a financial wizard. But I can tell you one fundamental problem with the financial system…
Lenders simply don’t have a sense of urgency, nor do they seem to care — at all — about the ramifications of their failure to execute.
I’m not saying that the entirety of the crisis is due to this seemingly complete disregard for fundamental customer service. Nor am I saying every lender has issues. But the “We don’t give a damn how this impacts anyone” mentality from a significant portion of lenders has to be a part of the problem.
Case in point
We have some clients who’ve entrusted us to sell their lovely home as they pack up and move a bunch of memories across the country –and leave many other memories behind. We’re in the midst of a brutal buyers market but the house went under contract fairly swiftly. Things progressed as they normally do, inspections, repairs, the sort of things that are stressful on all involved parties. Meanwhile the lender is (in theory) plugging along behind the scenes securing the financing. No easy task in today’s environment. But every status report we get from the lender indicates there are no issues. The buyer is a “slam dunk”.
T-minus 3 days prior to close, and there are no loan docs at title. The frequency of calls to the lender increase from both the buyer’s and seller’s agent. “All is well” we’re both assured.
Day before scheduled close, still no loan docs. “They will be there tomorrow, no problem!”
Closing day. One set of docs comes in, another does not. We’ve now got the number for the lender and title engraved in our memory. I’m sure the title rep hates me but I don’t really care — I’m trying to keep my client from hating me. At 4:15pm, all the docs finally arrive. And of course the title company and the county recorders offices close in 45 minutes.
*POOF* Just like that, the close doesn’t happen as scheduled. The sellers scrambled to vacate the house in time, the buyer has things to move in. Everyone just wants the transaction to close. But it doesn’t because some bonehead at the lender failed to do his or her job.
So what
One could argue that a day or two delay in the closing is not of much consequence. I beg to differ. While transactions do fall apart or are delayed every day for a plethora of reasons, this one should not have. Ultimately one person dropped the ball, disrupting the lives of several people in the process. Their cavalier attitude is what chaps me the most. “I’m busy”. “I did what I could”. “I’ve got six other loans to process”. “It’s only a day late”.
Whatever. I don’t want to hear your lame excuses. Neither do the sellers or the buyers. Do what you are paid to do. Oh wait. You get paid the same whether or not the loan funds on time. You don’t really give a rat’s a$$ about the buyer or the sellers. You can’t even say “I am sorry”.
You don’t care.
Maybe that’s part of the problem.
