Friday, December 25, 2009

Bank of America Justifies Loan Modification Efforts

Bank of America Corp. (BAC) says the reason it has trailed behind other major lenders in the Obama administration’s loan modification program is that it has a much higher percentage ineligible borrowers than its competitors.


By the end of November, only 15% of the bank’s eligible borrowers had begun the trial modification process, compared to 30% for Wells Fargo & Co., 31% for JP Morgan Chase & Co., and 43% for Citigroup Inc.

Eligible borrowers are defined by the U.S. Treasury Department as those who are at least 60 days behind on their mortgage. About one million Bank of America borrowers are considered eligible, more than twice those of J.P. Morgan Chase and about three times more than Wells Fargo.

The bank’s Loss Mitigation executive, Jack Schakett, explained that only 340,000 of these borrowers are likely to meet the requirements of the government program, such as the required debt-to-income ratio of 31%.

Schakett added that since the bank had been more active in preventing foreclosure, more of its borrowers have instead remained in default or fallen further into delinquency. He said that in doing so, the bank has prevented more foreclosures than its rivals.

Only 98 of the roughly 150,000 trial modifications started by the bank have been converted into permanent terms, casting more doubt on the lender’s efforts to provide long-term mortgage assistance.

Schakett acknowledged that this may be because the bank did not press borrowers hard enough to complete the requirements, adding that they could have created a stronger sense of urgency to get them to participate. He said that the bank is making efforts to lead other servicers to make more permanent loan modifications in the future.

Click here to read more from the Washington Post.

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~Tina Jan~
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Coldwell Banker Kivett-Teeters
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