Wells Fargo Doubles HAMP Feat

In an attempt to reduce the number of foreclosed homes across the US, on Wednesday Wells Fargo & Company (WFC: 27.34 +0.01 +0.04%) announced that it continues to proceed swiftly with its extensive and incessant use of the federal Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) along with its other modification programs. As on Jan 31, 2010, Wells Fargo recorded 137,128 active trials and completed modifications. This included 17,652 permanent modifications, twice the number of permanent modifications as of the end of Dec 2009 and 7,554 permanent modifications whose completion remained pending.
 
Further, as a result of this initiative, more than 92,000 Wells Fargo customers with HAMPs made all three trial payments as of Jan 31, 2010. The company expects about 50% of these will have their modifications completed, while 30% remain ineligible for HAMP after their documents were reviewed, 10% failed to provide the required documents and the rest 10% loan customers provided no documents at all.
 
Wells Fargo’s genuine efforts appear in the fact that by exploring all options since the beginning of 2009, the company has done more than 350,000 non-HAMP modifications, including active trials in place as at the end of Jan, 2010. Additionally, from Oct, 2009 through Jan, 2010, Wells Fargo initiated or has completed three modifications for every one foreclosure sale on owner-occupied properties.
 
Although companies such as Bank of America Corp. (BAC: 15.88 +0.22 +1.40%), Citigroup Inc. (C: 3.43 +0.02 +0.59%), USB Bancorp (USB: 23.91 +0.18 +0.76%), FirstCity Financial Corp. (FCFC: 5.40 -0.15 -2.70%) and Ocwen Financial Corporation (OCN: 10.64 +0.23 +2.21%), to name a few, are also engaged in HAMP and other modification programs to prevent foreclosure, Wells Fargo is believed to be proactively reaching out to its customers to collect the necessary HAMP documents to manage and address customers’ loan problems through all the possible existing and viable alternatives. As a result, it has been able to help out 92% of its customers to stay current in their payments.
 
Not only has the company increased its home retention staff by more than 8,000 to a total of more than 15,000 employees, Wells Fargo has also met with over 6,300 customers through home preservation workshops and expects to organize more of such events in 2010 to work out options in order to prevent a foreclosure.
 
At a time when the financial crisis has hit both individuals and financial institutions rather hard, Wells Fargo is exploiting all options to prevent foreclosures. Management believes that a foreclosure benefits neither the company nor the customer. While the company can restore investor and customer confidence, customers are also hopeful of releasing their homes in the near future now that the economy is slowly treading a path of recovery.