California’s MLSListings Offers Fannie Mae Short Sale Assistance Desk

""MLSListings, Inc."":http://www.mlslistings.com, a not-for-profit, California mutual benefit corporation formed by eight Northern California Realtor associations, will participate in the ""Fannie Mae"":http://www.fanniemae.com Short Sale Assistance Desk program.
[IMAGE] MLSListings, which represents more than 18,000 subscribers in 6,000 firms in an area covering 28,000 square miles, is the first multiple listing service (MLS) in California to participate.

""We are pleased to partner with the ""California Association of Realtors"":http://www.car.org in implementing Fannie Mae's Short Sale Assistance Desk because it marks an important step forward in helping homebuyers, sellers, and our subscribers avoid the frustrations and complexities so common in short sale transactions,"" said Jim Harrison, MLSListings CEO.

""Access to the Assistance Desk will help our agents and brokers work to resolve cases where the short sale approval channel has slowed down, so their clients can close the transaction, first and foremost, and do so in a more timely manner,"" Harrison added.

Fannie Mae launched the Assistance Desk to help streamline the short sale process by leveraging relationships between participating listing services and

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their members to collect and submit information to the GSE using a dedicated submission form on the MLS' Web site.

Participating MLSs also provide Fannie Mae with data to improve property valuations and make quicker approval decisions on short sale requests.

The new system, exclusive to real estate agents who are members of the participating multiple listing service, will help reduce processing times for many short sale transactions, which can take more than nine months.

The system can also help sellers avoid foreclosure and give prospective buyers confidence that a short sale transaction is a viable home-buying option, according to a statement from the companies.

""This initiative is another tool to help the short sale transaction process along - reducing unnecessary delays, helping troubled borrowers avoid foreclosure, and helping short sale buyers finalize their sales,"" said Marcel Bryar, Fannie Mae VP.

The Short Sale Assistance Desk staff can accept cases involving properties with a first-lien owned by Fannie Mae, and the servicer must have a valid offer for the property.

""While real estate professionals are expected to first make a reasonable effort to resolve issues by working through the servicer, the Assistance Desk staff will help in the event the servicer has not provided an initial response within 20 days, a final property valuation within 30 days, or a final decision or specific direction to facilitate a decision within 60 days from the original offer submission date,"" Bryar explained.

""The Assistance Desk will expedite timely resolution with many less complicated cases resolved in just a couple of weeks,"" he said.