Auction.com and Nationstar Morgage Auction.com and Nationstar Mortgage have teamed up to violate sellers and realtors rights during shortsales , Internet

I hate to said that the homeowner is right. I have been going though hell for the auction.com business practices.

Auction.com has a great business relationship with NationStar, and together they can screw the homeowners, and the Realtors too. They will not allow a short sale if it is not done through Auction.com (5% commission paid by the buyer to Auction.com), a living hell dealing with these two companies together.

It doesn't matter that the seller is trying to do a loan modification, the home will be posted for sale in Auction.com even before the homeowner gets a Notice of Default or Sale. People/Investors will be walking around the home, entering inside if they can (they try to opend the doors), jumping the fence to the backyard, and stealing whatever they can (in my case the patio furniture).

fake inflation of prices!! For all of you who have had a bad experience with auction.com, check out what NY Post says in this article http://nyp.st/1AOLYUK

You need to call your attorney general and file a complaint.  Then you need to call the Consumer Protection Finance Bureau and file a complaint.  Then call Benjamin Lawsky's office out of New York and file a complaint, and then call your state's licensing commissioner and ask that person AND the Association of Realtor's General Counsel for your state if auction.com can interfere with your agreed upon exclusive listing agreement with your Realtor and FORCE you to list a property that's ALREADY UNDER CONTRACT (opening you up to potential liability) with a third party that you didn't agree to use.  It's breach of contract all day long and interference.

Next sign this petition.

http://www.change.org/petitions/nationstar-mortgage-stop-violating-distressed-homeowner-rights-and-allow-them-to-opt-out-of-the-auction-com-process

Read the comments -

This process is also going on with Ocwen.  It's unbelievable.

Good Luck.

Technically the "lender is the seller" is a bit misleading.  While i understand auction.com is contracted by Nationstar to sell some of their REO (Real Estate Owned) inventory which are properties that have been ceased by the bank as a result of non-payment and are actually owned by the bank presently.  The statement “lender is the seller” would be accurate as it pertains to these properties.  However, as it pertains to short sale properties the owner is actually the seller.  

The lender is the first position lien holder and is extending the courtesy of allowing the seller/owner to liquidate the property for less than what is owned on it.  It is for that reason I believe auction.com and Nationstar Mortgage are towing a very risky line from a legal standpoint.  They are continually presenting the use of auction.com as an ultimatum.  

“Use this service or we will not continue the short sale process”.  

That has been my experience as I have dealt with clients that have been faced with the same ultimatum.  Unfortunately there is nothing in the agreement that specifically states how many times the property will be auctioned and what the reserve price is.  In my experience the reserve price actually changed from auction to auction.  So one auction could be won by a prospective buyer and then disqualified on a technicality like “borrower didn’t sign contract within 24 hours” which in the state of New York would never happen because no one would sign a contract without first running title with a title company of their choice.  A week later a new offer comes in for 219k and that one doesn't meet the reserve price.  So how can a deal with a higher purchase price be disqualified for not being high enough when a week earlier you were accepting a deal at a lower price and disqualified it for a different reason.  These inconsistencies only elongate and already convoluted process.  

My suggestions are the following to make the process truly fair and transparent, which is what auction.com claims is their aim.  

1. Reserve Price Disclosure: Stop hiding the reserve price from the listing agent and seller?  Why because lots of times these are based on BPOs which sometimes are done by inexperienced real estate professionals out to make their quick 50 bucks and move onto the next file.  Now the bank clings to an inaccurate opinion of value and disqualifies legitimate offers based on these shotty BPOs.  

2. Reserve Price Consistency: The reserve price should not be moved from auction to auction.  These auctions are conducted days apart so its not like doing a bpo after 3months and coming back with a different value based on market conditions. 

2. Finite # of Auctions: Have a finite number of auctions written into the agreement.  Part of the agreement states that if auction.com is not able to obtain a buyer that the property will be sold to the original offer if one exists. However, in my experience they never wanted to honor this promise in their own agreement so they just attempt to conduct an infinite amount of auctions even though they are not able to produce a better buyer after several tries.  If there is no limit on auctions then the promise made in the clause of the agreement regarding original offers being accepted upon auction.com failure just becomes smoke and mirrors as Nationstar nor auction.com never act in good faith and honor it.  

3. Identify all Bidders: All bidders/bids should be identified to lender and listing agent post auction.  Obviously during the auction we would not want any tampering with bids.  However, post auction there is not reason that all bidders should not be identified.  In a real auction there is no anonymity at all.  So why would there be any in a virtual online auction.  Technically there could be a layer of anonymity between bidders if they used usernames but not knowing who outbid whom and who had the 2nd or 3rd highest bid seems a bit shady.  Keeping these things unknown open auction.com up to suspicion of foul play.  Are all of the bidders real?  Does auction.com plant fake bidders to drive up the price?  These are things auction.com is being accused of.  I'm not even talking about giving this information to the general public.  However the listing agent and lender should be privy to identification and contact information for all bidders.  

Just some friendly suggestions from a real estate professional that has had a good amount of experience with both short sales and auction.com. 

I’d love to know what would keep auction.com from implementing any/all of my suggestions as well as hear your opinion on whether you think they would help make your process more efficient.   

A Clarification in Auction.com's favor: 
Not sure if auction.com has changed their policies since the original post but (despite the unfortunate fact that i have never actually closed any of my 4 auction.com files) I must admit according to all paperwork it seems that at least 1/2 of the listing agent's commission is protected by the auciton.com process.  If the prospective buyer wins and auciton and has an agent the listing agent and buyer's agent would split 5% commission.  If winning bidder has no agent then listing agent has the opportunity to earn full commission.  its my understanding that auction.com's 5% is added on top of winning bid and paid by the buyer.  

Thanks

Dear Steel Jelly,

Thank you for reaching out with your concerns regarding this Nationstar asset. In all cases, the seller is not Auction.com, but the actual financial institution that holds the loan. We simply provide the online platform for all sellers, institutional and private, to list their assets for auction. You can view the FAQ page for our Market Validation program here:

http://www.auction.com/marketvalidation.php. With that said, please contact Nationstar to address your concerns at 877-343-6386. If there is anything further I may do to be of assistance, please free to reach out to me or my Customer Service Supervisors Yamir Gonzalez or Vicky Hernandez at 800-793-6107.

Sincerely,

Peter Chevalier

Director of Customer Service