The US Treasury has released its loan modification progress report through July 2009. The report includes all lenders participating in the program and what they have currently done under the program. To date, the numbers are underwhelming but progress is being made. The program has had a slow start as the government and lenders both have been dragging their feet on the implementation.
So far, the program has seen 235,247 trial modifications started, but the real fun is looking at individual participants and seeing who is holding back and is moving strongly ahead.
The big winner so far has been Saxon Mortgage Services, Inc. as they have started the largest percentage of trial modifications as a percentage of eligible loans (25%) in comparison to the other major servicers (Wescom had a higher percentage at 28% but has a small volume).
Saxon has also offered the most trial modifications as a percentage of eligible loans (37%).
J.P. Morgan Chase, GMAC and Aurora Loan Services are the only other major servicers to have started trial modifications at a rate of 20% or above.
There are many lenders who simply haven’t got off the ground including Ocwen Financial Corporation (5%), Select Portfolio Servicing (3%) and Wachovia Mortgage (2%). However, the worst efforts are coming from two of the three biggest servicers, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.
Bank of America, which includes all of Countrywide has started trial modifications on just 4% of the nearly 800,000 eligible loans while having offered the opportunity to 13%. Sure, they have offered and started the 2nd most trial modifications through the Making Home Affordable plan, but the next closest servicer in terms of volume of eligible loans has over 400,000 fewer loans.
Wells Fargo is in a similar situation. They have started trial modifications on 6% of their eligible inventory while offering just 12%. They are the third largest servicer participating in the program.
In total, all participants have started just 9% of eligible trial loan modifications from a pool of over 2.7 million. The government has said it would like to have 500,000 started by Nov. 1 which would more than double the current offerings. The full chart of activity by participating lenders is listed below.
Home Affordable Modification Program numbers show a slow start for loan modifications
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