Apparently, the White House's Home Affordable Modification Program has lit a fire under one of America's largest banks, Bank of America. It comes down to avoiding foreclosure, which was up nearly 30 percent this past January when compared to January 2008. Ironically, the program began almost a year ago.
The program, created in March 2009, was supposed to provide "assistance of several government agencies, GSEs, and servicers - this effort involved the development and refinement of servicer guidelines, modification documents, and data collection and modeling tools." But the largest bank in America wasn't showing any difference in loan modifications, and the foreclosure rate seems to reveal that the program isn't really working at its full capacity, yet.
Consumer.com affairs states they many people contacted them complaining about the lack of help from their servicers. Costumers complained that everyone was extremely difficult to deal with, and surprisingly, elongated the loan modification process by demanding information several times before eventually denying it then waiting for the loan to be foreclosed anyway.
Bank of America reports that its now helped thousands more since last month's staggering 3,200 modifications. "This initiative entails mail, telephone and door-to-door outreach -- averaging more than a dozen contacts per customer -- aimed at encouraging and helping eligible homeowners meet their documentation requirements and avoid falling out of the program," Bank of America stated in a press release.
The Home Affordable Modification Program's latest press release posted on their website claims that more than 110,000 loan modifications were approved, as of December 2009. On top of the 110,000, more than 66,000 were approved and 46,000 were waiting for a signature. The also state, that because of HAMP, "more than 850,000 homeowners have had a median payment reduction exceeding $500."
The goal of HAMP is to be able to provide loan modifications to at least 4 million people by 2012. Everyone knows that nothings happens fast in the U.S. government but at least a plan is being implemented and mostly enforced to help the people who are at-risk of foreclosure.
Source: Hmpadmin.com and Consumeraffairs.com
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Written by Amy Munday
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