Archives for February 2010

One Tweet From Wells Fargo, One Tweet From Bank of America

February 17, 2010 by admin

I’m on a bit of a tirade today as I work through a few short sale issues and personal banking issues that shouldn’t exist.

I have a firm understanding of my value to a large corporation. It’s purely monetary, and I’m just a number. To further exacerbate the problem, one of the companies mentioned in the title is owned by the Government, and the Government is the last entity on the planet that I place my trust in. The only thing that I can trust in is my own ability to survive. I am 100% responsible for 100% of my actions 100% of the time. Period.

Things don’t happen to us. They are a result of choices we make, and today, I choose to shift my entire financial strategy from big bank, to small bank. Here’s a simple illustration of what drives me to be suspicious of big banks. I recently noted two independent tweets from the “team” of twitter support people at both Wells Fargo and Bank Of America. Let me first disclaim that I don’t believe that either bank has genuinely taken an interest in supporting their customers through twitter for any other reason than to appear as though they care. There’s no possible way for them to support all of their customers through twitter.

A recent Tweet fromWells Fargo:

@jimgoodman I work for @Ask_WellsFargo & saw ur tweet. (I also replied to @corkz.) Plz follow & DM Deutsche Bank Barry Snyder with the details. We want 2 help. ^JR

…and now a similar response from Bank of America:

@RealScottsdale I work for Bank of America. Were you able to find a resolution to your Equator question? ^km

Perhaps they care, perhaps they don’t. It’s possible that they both follow a basic protocol that has organically grown through the phenomenon known as Twitter, or it’s possible that they have both hired a 3rd party support organization who answers questions based on a list of policies and procedures. It could be that they are just hiring whomever to “do it the way the other guy does it.”

Either way, the only responses I have ever received from the “support” department from a lending institution has been something to the tune of, “I work for the bank, so I can help you, I hope we helped.” No real help is being offered. They’re simply fielding tweets to gauge customer perception, and they should probably already know that the amount of bad comments will inherently outweigh the good comments, because that’s how people work. People will always tell 10 people how terrible something is before they’ll tell one person how good something is.

GRRRR. Good bye big banks!

Dear Wells Fargo, I’m Leaving You

February 17, 2010 by admin

Dear Wells Fargo,

After nearly 20 years of banking with you, I am leaving. I will be finding someone else who cares about me more. I will find someone who doesn’t charge me to hold my money, who doesn’t rip me off when I use the ATM that’s part of the “network,” who doesn’t eat up my money every month at a rate of return that makes what you pay me look like a fee in itself.

I will find someone who makes decisions based on who I am as a customer, not as a number. I will find a company who is in touch with their client, and who doesn’t hire a team of people to “handle customer service issues” through one twitter account with canned responses. I will put my money where I can shake the hand of the people connected to the pulse of the company’s culture, who understand and believe in the vision of the company, who aren’t sheep, controlled by a corporate attitude.

Bank of America? No. Chase? No. Citi? No. Don’t worry Wells Fargo, I’m not going to leave you for another famous bank. I’m going for the bank next door, cause she’ll care more, and we can raise a family of children named Benjamin, Lincoln, Grant, Jefferson, and Washington together.

When I deposit my certificates of appreciation, I do so trusting that you appreciate it, and so far, you have not appreciated me. So, farewell. I’ll never come back.

We’re Due for a Second Wave

February 1, 2010 by admin

Just Last year in Maricopa County, there were roughly 35,000 single family homes that sold. That number almost matches the prior year. Of those homes sold in 2009, 12,975 of them were Short Sales. That’s 37% of the market. That’s HUGE! Most of those can be attributed to the sub-prime mortgage crisis and subsequent market crash.

While there are reports that have surfaced about the market improving, prices on the rise, etc., one of the more important topics that needs to be addressed is the impending wave of 5-year option-arm “smart online loans bad credit” that will be resetting this year. During 2010, I believe that we will see a huge influx of foreclosures in the 400K+ market.

In 2005, buyers were qualifying for homes that were twice as expensive as they could afford because of products that had interest only payments with huge adjustments on the horizon. At the time, people believed that real estate just continued to go up in value, so it seemed to make sense to purchase a $400,000 home based on income that would qualify you for a $200,000 home, in the hopes that within the next 5 years, the home would be worth at least $600,000. That’s not what happened. Now homeowners in the jumbo and luxury market are as stuck as the rest of us, being completely upside-down in their homes. As a result, they are trapped with a ticking time bomb. As soon as those 5/1 ARMs reset, they’ll be headed for foreclosure, and the 2nd wave will begin.

I would encourage you to watch this video created by Jonathan Jarvis which explains why our market experienced what it did, and also makes a great case against borrowing money.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.