Wells Fargo Steady on HAMP - Analyst Blog

In an attempt to reduce the number of foreclosed homes across the U.S., on Wednesday Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) 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 Mar 31, 2010, Wells Fargo recorded 144,932 active trials and completed modifications. This included 30,014 permanent modifications, almost twice the number of permanent modifications as at the end of Jan 2010, and 9,162 permanent modifications whose completion remained pending.

Further, as a result of this initiative, more than 138,000 Wells Fargo customers with HAMPs made all three trial payments as of Mar 31, 2010. The company expects about 50% of these to 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 efforts have borne fruit in the fact that by exploring all options since the beginning of 2009, the company has done more than 523,000 non-HAMP modifications, including active trials in place as at the end of Mar 2010. Additionally, from Oct 2009 through Mar 2010, Wells Fargo initiated or has completed three modifications for every one foreclosure sale on owner-occupied properties.

Besides on Apr 5, Wells Fargo also launched the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA) program in an attempt to provide incentives to customers who work on short sales and deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure. Additionally, the company is taking active interest in discussing foreclosure matters in the government’s $75 billion mortgage relief program along with its peers Bank of America Corp. (BAC), Citigroup Inc. (C) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM).

Although companies such as Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan, USB Bancorp (USB), FirstCity Financial Corp. (FCFC) and Ocwen Financial Corporation (OCN), 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 their customers’ loan problems through all the possible existing and viable alternatives. As a result, it has been able to help out more than 91% of its customers to stay current in their payments.

Wells Fargo increased its home retention staff by more than 10,000 to a total of more than 17,400 employees in the U.S., since the beginning of 2009.

At a time when the financial crisis has hit both individuals and financial institutions rather hard, Wells Fargo is exploiting all options to prevent a foreclosure. Management believes that a foreclosure benefits neither the company nor the customer. While the company can restore its investor and customer confidence, customers are also hopeful of releasing their homes in the near future, especially as the economy is slowly treading a path of recovery.