Resolving mortgage modifications

Bankers and troubled homeowners will unite for a second time this week as county housing agencies run another fast-track loan modification initiative in White Plains.

Community Housing Innovations in partnership with the Housing Action Council, Human Development Services of Westchester and Westchester Development Opportunities, hosted an initial fast-track program in conjunction with Bank of America in June.

This time around, about 100 applicants and families have the opportunity to meet with Wells Fargo and Wachovia loan officers from Sept. 20 to Sept. 22 to resolve stalled mortgage loan modification applications.

Applicants must be Wells Fargo or Wachovia customers.

Attorney Peter Spino Jr., foreclosure prevention counselor for Community Housing Innovations, said he has been receiving calls from homeowners in diverse predicaments.

“It runs the whole gamut,” he said. “Many who have called are still current on their mortgages, but are scared to fall behind. So it runs from people who are current to those who are in foreclosure.”

Junius Ferebee, assistant vice president of Wells Fargo, said that “personal contact at events like this can help some customers manage the sometimes complex modification process.”

Alexander Roberts, executive director of Community Housing Innovations, believes the coming together of private and public entities provides an “excellent case and example” of streamlining the loan modification process, but there is room for improvement.

“Public agencies and enforcement agencies are not sufficiently enforcing the options that banks had committed to,” he said. “When the financial crisis hit, $700 billion was made available almost immediately and here it is two years later and only a tiny fraction of the $75 billion (Homeowner Stability Initiative) set aside to help families in hardship or who have lost jobs has been used ”¦ but the fast-track concept at least gives the bank every opportunity to provide a loan modification.”

Ferebee noted that in general, about half of the customers Wells Fargo has worked with at local loan modification events received resolution on-the-spot or soon after.

Of the first loan modification event, Spino said the Bank of America loan officers were “all fantastic and reasonably knowledgeable,” but a broader focus on speed and efficiency could still be improved.

“We don”™t have resolution on the majority of (first event) cases and we were told if they were not resolved on-the-spot, it would be within a couple of weeks,” he said.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Department of the Treasury, more than 3.15 million modification agreements were completed from April 2009 to June 2010.

Interested participants can call (877) 483-2686 or visit chigrants.org for information on this or future loan modification programs.