Holding On

LIfe as a real estate agent during the mortgage crisis meltdown has me on the phone quite a bit. Don't get me wrong, I'm not really accomplishing anything but I'm learning how to sit still for 45 minutes at a time, phone in hand while one of many banks ponders its losses, and keeps me on hold. They never come to the phone. I even fax them while I'm on hold and ask them to please take my call. I'm one of those blinking lights. Are calls really taken in the order they were received?

On Monday I missed a call on my cell phone. It was a bank with the first mortgage. I've been trying to reach them for a while to talk with their loss mitigation specialist. Her voice mailbox is full. I googled her name, the city she calls from, the financial institution she is associated with-- guess what-- not even google knows who the heck she is.

Behind the scenes, behind all the news and headlines about the numbers, the losses, personal lives, and congressional fixes are people like me on the phone all day long trying to talk with someone about a short sale.