Midwest Firm Offers Service to Speed Up Fannie Mae Short Sales

""Midwest Real Estate Data LLC"":http://www.mredllc.com/ (MRED) has teamed up with ""Fannie Mae"":http://www.fanniemae.com to provide its brokers and agents with a service designed to shorten the time they have to wait for approval from the GSE on short sale transactions.
[IMAGE] MRED is a real estate data aggregator and distributor that provides multiple listing service to over 40,000 real estate professionals in northern Illinois, southern Wisconsin, and northwest Indiana.

On Tuesday, MRED announced the availability of the Fannie Mae Short Sale Assistance Desk for its coverage area. The company explained that the service will help real estate professionals with the handling of post-contract issues such as loan servicer responsiveness, the existence of a second lien, or matters related to mortgage insurance.

Currently, gaining an approval to proceed with a short sale transaction can take months. By collecting and submitting information via the GSE's streamlined Assistance Desk service, MRED says Fannie Mae will have the data it needs to make quicker decisions regarding short sale requests.

The Assistance Desk expedites the process so that a real estate professional will receive an initial response within one week confirming that the case has been reviewed, MRED explained.

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A spokesperson for MRED said Fannie Mae is willing to work with MLS services across the nation to implement its Assistant Desk to speed up the short sale process. The short sale tool has been employed by MLSs in Florida and Nevada as well, and MRED says agents in these markets are beginning to see the benefits.

""The Fannie Mae Short Sale Assistance Desk helped my seller and me get results even after we felt like we had hit a dead end with the lien holder,"" said Damian Janssen of Keller Williams Group One in Sparks, Nevada. ""We were at the point where we could not even get through on the phone and were about to give up hope. After we engaged the Assistance Desk, a senior negotiator from the lien holder contacted me….We had short sale approval just 27 days later.""

Marty Hunt, a real estate agent out of Orlando, Florida, described the Fannie Mae Assistance Desk as “amazing.”

""I submitted a request…and had two calls from the lender the next day,” Hunt said. “I was in the field showing houses but she called the second time because I had not called her back quickly. That's what I call responsive! And she couldn't have been more helpful.""

Russ Bergeron, MRED’s CEO, commented, ""We are thrilled to be able to provide to our brokers and agents an extremely effective way to speed up the short sale process at no cost to them. Our customers now have an escalation procedure to help facilitate and streamline short sales for many of their transactions.”

Dean Rouso, president of MRED, added, ""Long approval delays increase the risk that a buyer will walk away [and] have led many potential buyers to avoid short sale listings altogether. By providing the Assistance Desk, MRED is helping to support the recovery of distressed communities and is providing a benefit to homeowners and the real estate professional community.""