Bank of America Loan Modification Finally Gets Streamlined
On March 14, 2009, President Obama announced to the American public that a program would be put in place to help struggling homeowners achieve affordable and sustainable mortgages. This program was called the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan.
What most Americans don’t know is that when President Obama announced this plan, Bank of America and every other lender and mortgage servicer in the country was also hearing about it for the first time. The result of Obama’s announcement was overwhelming, flooding mortgage servicers with requests for “Obama’s Plan” to modify mortgages to a promised 2% interest rate.
Bank of America Loan Modification in particular was by far the most inundated. Servicing millions of homeowners, Bank of America scrambled to deal with the onslaught of customers in default or facing foreclosure. The result thus far can best be described as a radical departure from what Obama promised the American public. Not only have modifications from Bank of America been rather difficult and time-consuming, many of the loan modifications that have been produced between March and July seemed to be computer generated, did not deal with individual hardship, and set millions of borrowers up for what is known as “payment shock”.
“Payment shock” is when a forbearance or modification plan is not permanent and at the end of the plan, reverts to a mortgage product that will raise the payment, possibly above the original PITI payment.
Adjust My Loan is proud to announce that just last week, we received a call from the first Bank of America Loan Modification negotiator. We know he is the first because he called from a temporary number, at a temporary desk, and he filled us in on the truth behind Bank of America’s ridiculously long turn around times.
This call was incredibly significant as the negotiator explained to us not only why Bank of America has put the reliability of assisting default borrowers in a computer program, but also how Bank of America has struggled since March 14th to create a staff to handle the immense number of requests for loan modification. In short, they simply did not have the man power, the software, a centralized office, or the knowledge on how to process Obama’s plan.
As of July 10th, the Bank of America Loan Modification Department has a staff of negotiators out of Plano, Texas in place to address all of those issues. Now, Bank of America negotiators can go over the terms of loan modification, assess what is affordable in terms of monthly payment, and go over the specific rules and/or guidelines that investors are looking for to approve loan modifications. This news is incredibly exciting because it means that now Bank of America has a trained staff to deal with the intricacies of every mortgagor’s specific and mutually exclusive hardship situation.
No two mortgages are the same and the same can be said for hardship situations. Until July 10th, Bank of America was processing loan modifications by simply putting income figures into a web-based software system that would automatically generate a loan modification and in many cases, the outcome was not only not affordable, but completely contrary to the hardship situation.
We here at Adjust My Loan are already beginning to see the outcome of this wonderful news. Modifications through Bank of America are coming through with more comprehensive results, with sustainable & affordable payments, and in a much more timely manner. For more information about Bank of America, loan modifications, and the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan, visit www.adjustmyloan.com or simply give us a call! We would love to hear your feedback on this exciting news!
