Mortgage Modifications - Bank Of America Announces Latest Mortgage And HAMP Info

Almost 25,000 mortgage modifications were conducted by Bank of America for economically stressed homeowners in the month of October for an increase of approximately 8,500 over September. About 22,400 of the October modifications were proprietary fixes organized by the bank, and 2,600 were changed from trial plans to permanent modifications via the government’s Home Affordable Modification Program a.k.a HAMP.

Bank of America has conducted in excess of 725,000 mortgage modifications since early 2008. Nearly 88,500 of those have been conducted through the HAMP program.

“We saw a gain in proprietary modifications in October, and a large number of those are alternative modifications for homeowners who we were unable to qualify for a permanent HAMP modification or are no longer active in a completed modification,” said Rebecca Mairone, default servicing executive for Bank of America Home Loans. “When our customers do not qualify for a permanent HAMP modification, our team works very hard to find other homeownership retention solutions.”

The number of Bank of America customers in active trial plans fell from 62,000 in September to 50,000 in October. This is a major reduction considering there were more than 250,000 active trial plans the previous March.

“The decrease in active trial modifications reflects our aggressive efforts to convert homeowners from trial to permanent modifications and our priority of completing reviews of trial modifications that have lasted six months or more,” Mairone noted.

“We are evaluating each case thoroughly before making a final determination for any homeowner that we cannot complete a permanent HAMP modification. At this time, we anticipate substantially completing decisions on the remaining ‘aged trials’ by year’s end. We have discussed our plans for meeting this goal with Treasury representatives, and will ensure that customers are kept informed about their status as those decisions are made.”