Modifications A la Carte!

Wells Fargo Modifies Nearly a Quarter-Million Mortgages
08/26/2009 By: Carrie Bay
Wells Fargo says that through the first seven months of this year, it modified more than 240,000 mortgage loans, including 20,219 trial modification starts under the federal Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP).The lender’s mortgage unit, headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, recently came under fire when the Treasury disclosed earlier this month that Wells had started trial modifications on only 6 percent of its HAMP-eligible mortgages, one of the slowest starts among large lenders.
Wells Fargo Home Mortgage currently services one of every six mortgage loans in the nation. The company says that more than 90 percent of its customers have remained current on their mortgage payments, and it boasts the lowest delinquency rate of the top four lenders in the nation.
Mike Heid, co-president of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, said his company has been accelerating its use of HAMP. “We’re confident we can achieve our portion of the government’s goal to reach 500,000 HAMP trial modification starts by November 1,” Heid said.
To assist the mounting numbers of distressed homeowners, Wells Fargo hired and trained 4,000 new employees in the first half of the year, adding to the 7,500 staff already in place. The company also says that it plans to quickly eliminate the customer service backlog created by the time lag between when the government announced HAMP and when the guidelines were defined.
“While the majority of our customers who request help are getting through to us and receiving the help they need, we know we’ve fallen short of our customer service goals in some cases,” Heid said.
Heid went on the explain, “We’ve recently undertaken new steps that will soon enable us to qualify most borrowers for a HAMP trial modification during our initial point of contact, and then send eligible customers the required trial modification agreement within 48 hours. During the three-month trial period, we’ll work with the customer to collect all of the required items to determine if the modification can be finalized.”
In addition to lowering payments through modifications, for the first seven months of 2009, Wells Fargo also completed more than 860,000 refinances for Americans.