In what appears to be a growing trend, JP Morgan Chase (including its subsidiaries WAMU and EMC) recently announced it is expanding its loan modification program. In a recent press release the company said the following:
Chase announced today that it has extended its mortgage modification efforts to the investor-owned loans that it services — about $1.1 trillion of loans — significantly expanding the reach and effectiveness of its previously announced mortgage modification efforts. This effort includes investor-owned mortgages held in securitizations.
“When homes are foreclosed, everybody suffers, so working aggressively to modify all loans -whether owned by Chase or owned by others – on terms that should work for the borrower, makes good sense for everyone,” he said. “Our experience at Chase has shown that when mortgages are properly modified, using income verification and other appropriate criteria, they perform very well over time.”
This is welcome news for struggling homeowners who are delinquent on their mortgages. While the government programs are a great fit for homeowners who have not fallen behind on mortgage payments, loan modifications are currently the only solution for people who are more than 30 days delinquent.