Lenders: Repo Home Prevention Goal Within Reach
July 20th, 2009 by 
Joseph Smith
Some of the biggest loan services in the country claimed that they have modified or refinanced a considerable number of distressed loans, and thus, helping many homeowners save their properties from the repo home crisis.
Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Servicing executive vice president Mary Coffin said that the Obama Administration’s repo home prevention goal is on the right track to achieve its target of helping about 9 million troubled homeowners modify or refinance their mortgages.
Coffin said that the bank was able to refinance about 750,000 loans in the first six months of this year. She added that the bank provided about 200,000 loan medications, both trial and completed, which she said was twice the number achieved by the bank for the same period last year
She explained that Wells Fargo represented about 20 percent of the mortgage servicing market and so far this year, about 4 million homeowners have already received loan modifications or refinanced.
Meanwhile, the Obama Administration said that not all lending institutions are performing equally in their programs to help stem the tide of foreclosures, with some doing better than other servicers.
According to Herb Allison, assistant secretary for financial stability at the Department of Treasury, if foreclosure would continue unabated, analysts predicted that over 6 million American families would become victims of the repo home crisis in the coming years.
Meanwhile, Housing and Urban Development’s mortgage finance senior adviser William Apgar warned that the increasing unemployment rate will make the task of helping homeowners meet their mortgage payments even more difficult. He pointed out that as the economic downturn continue to languish, unemployment keeps on rising and pushing some homeowners to default on their payments.
Data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the country’s unemployment rate was 9.5 from May to June, representing a 3.9 percent rise from the previous year.
In his statement, Apgar said that the Obama Adminitration has been exploring options to provide mortgage payment assistance to jobless homeowners. The plan would include measures that would provide opportunity for distressed homeowners to remain as renters after banks foreclosed on their properties.
On its part, Bank of America said that the Making Home Affordable Program is the bank’s repo home prevention efforts.
