Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) reported an increase in the number of both trial modifications and permanent modifications under the federal government’s Home Mortgage Affordability Program (HAMP) in its latest report.
The Charlotte, N.C. based bank reported that it now has 13,701 permanent home modifications pending under the Home Mortgage Affordability Program.
This news comes on the heels of Wells Fargo and other banks announcing significant increases in the number of permanent modifications being made. Wells Fargo announced that they had doubled the amount of permanent modifications made to their previously most recent report. Other banks also had significant increases in the number of mortgages that they had modified.
Bank of America has previously been criticized by consumer advocates for not doing a good enough job with assisting homeowners in making loan modifications. Some believe that Bank of America’s participation in the Home Mortgage Affordability Program has been too slow and bureaucratic. Individual homeowners have previously complained that they are unable to get a loan modification despite qualifying under the program
A lot of the criticism sheds from the fact that banks had far too few people working on making loan modifications when program was announced. Since then, banks have stepped up their hiring and now appear to be doing a somewhat better job, but there are still many homeowners that have been unable to work through Bank of America’s and other bank’s bureaucratic processes.
