I’ve been doing short sales since before they were the norm – starting back in 2004 or so – and only about a year into my time as a real estate agent. It was an early introduction into what seemed like an ugly little secret in banking at the time – it was obvious that working in loss mitigation departments at the bank was considered a short term, lame position and turnover was very high for staffing. You could tell the people who worked in those departments were used to being yelled at because they were dealing with homeowners in foreclosure and a variety of financial distresses – in fact, my first deal like this included me having to tell the guy from the loss mitigation group to “stop yelling at me, I’m not the one who’s missing their payments and I’m not yelling at you.” He didn’t even realizing how he was yelling at me so early in my discussion with him about the loan I was calling on (I represented the buyer too) and he quickly apologized. That was, what feels like, a long time ago and it was a company that had been bought out by Washington Mutual and their office was based in Florida.
Fast forward a couple of years to the financing market going nuts because of loan defaults and Option ARM loans resetting while people’s home values were rapidly declining. In the midst of it, some companies failed or were about to fail - like Goldman Sachs and their loan servicing division, Litton. If I recall correctly at the time, a bunch of executives from G.S. and the former World Savings (who’s assets were also sold off to Ocwen at a STEEP discount) went to work at Ocwen and now they’re back big time as Ocwen reveals it’s IPO (initial public offering).
See the link here for more details.
Seems that there are some who are making mighty good money off of the backs of high risk borrowers and taxpayers who helped bail out companies with these high risk loans. I keep saying that the world of mortgages is really like Monopoly money and the more things change, the more they stay the same….
