Bank of America, who in October temporarily suspended foreclosures in all 50 states to assess and review their handling and paperwork processes of foreclosures, said their new "Legacy Asset Servicing" will handle the resolution of issues surrounding the inefficiencies that led to their October foreclosure moratorium.

Upon hearing the news, the first question in my mind was "will this speed up the short sale process?" Short sales, in many circumstances, are agonizingly slow and the snail's pace more often than not leads to a buyer walking away before the lender provides the short sale approval… ultimately killing a deal before it even gets wheels. It's no secret that short sales are slow and the processes surrounding them aren't ideal, but I'm getting a growing impression that banks are beginning to address this.

This announcement mirrors the recent surprise in pace of a short sale with Bank of America that I am currently working on. I may just be pleasantly experiencing an anomaly and I surely have our excellent negotiator to thank (http://www.mbs-shortsales.com/), but this seems to be more than just a coincidence. I mean, wouldn't you think they would address their known inadequacies at some point?

Let's hope more banks follow suit and that this is the beginning of better short sale processes for everyone involved!

- Robert E. Wasser - Seattle and Bellevue real estate news, blog, and market trends