Countrywide offers help with mortgages

updated 8:10 p.m. ET Oct. 23, 2007

CALABASAS, Calif. - Countrywide Financial Corp., the nation’s largest mortgage lender, said Tuesday it will begin calling borrowers to offer refinancing or modifications on $16 billion in loans with interest rates set to adjust by the end of 2008.

But as defaults and foreclosures snowball, the mortgage industry is under increasing pressure to do even more to help financially strapped borrowers hang on to their homes.

“People are talking about it, saying it might be necessary, but there’s not a lot of it going on,” said Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance, an independent trade publication.

The Mortgage Bankers Association is currently surveying its members to determine how many mortgages have been modified in recent months.

Moody’s Investors Service recently surveyed 16 mortgage servicers that accounted for 80 percent of the market for subprime loans made to borrowers with shaky credit histories.

It found that most of those companies had modified only about 1 percent of loans with interest rates that reset in the first half of this year.

The bankers association said the survey was flawed because it didn’t include other ways that borrowers are being helped, including temporary reductions of monthly payments or spreading delinquent amounts over future payments.

“It is important to understand that the (loan) modification is only one means of helping a borrower who is behind on their payments,” said Steve O’Connor, the association’s senior vice president.

So far this year, Calabasas, Calif.-based Countrywide said it has completed about 20,000 loan modifications — a figure that represents less than 5 percent of the more than 500,000 loans the lender reports were behind in payments as of last month.

The figure amounts to about 24 percent of the roughly 82,000 loans the company said were in foreclosure.

Countrywide said the statistics can be misleading.

“The number is not small when you sort down to the people who are seriously in trouble.” said Steve Bailey, CEO of loan administration at Countrywide, which has 8.9 million loans valued at $1.45 trillion,

On Tuesday, the company said it would discuss possible loan changes with borrowers who are current on loans but face pending interest rate resets. The lender said it intends to refinance about $10 billion in loans and modify another $4 billion.

It also plans to contact holders of loans totaling some $2.2 billion who are late on their loans and struggling because of recent rate resets.

Countrywide said it has already helped more than 40,000 borrowers and would reach out to 82,000 more to provide some kind of relief.

Countrywide shares fell 63 cents, or 4.02 percent, to $15.05. The shares have traded in a 52-week range of $14.40 to $45.26.

Many lenders have only recently began ramping up their loss mitigation departments after years when the booming housing market let many borrowers who fell behind on mortgages sell their homes for more than the value of their mortgage.

Another problem has been investors balking at interest rate cuts that could eat into their profits.

Earlier this year, Seattle-based Washington Mutual Inc., with a mortgage servicing portfolio valued at $713.3 billion, said it would refinance up to $2 billion in subprime loans to discounted fixed-rate loans for borrowers who are current on payments.

Wells Fargo & Co., with a mortgage servicing portfolio of $1.41 trillion at the end of June, declined to say how many home loans it has modified.

The San Francisco-based bank reported that less than 4.5 percent of its loans were delinquent at the end of June, while 0.56 percent had entered foreclosure.

“We work hard to keep customers in their homes, whenever possible, when they experience financial difficulties,” bank spokesman Jason Menke said in a prepared statement.

Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America Corp., the nation’s second-largest bank, said it modified 3,200 home loans representing $240 million during the eight months ended Aug. 30 and had just 192 homes in foreclosure as of Sept. 30.

The bank declined to break out how many mortgages made up its loan servicing portfolio, valued at $377 billion at the end of September.

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