Daily Real Estate News | November 4, 2008
Action Suggests Seriousness on Refinancings
JPMorgan Chase & Co. has announced that it will rewrite 400,000 mortgages from Washington Mutual totaling $70 billion, following in the footsteps of Bank of America Corp.'s plans to rewrite 400,000 mortgages from Countrywide beginning next month.
JPMorgan Chase will reduce interest rates, suspend payments for a time, refinance mortgages through programs that write down loans to current home values, and halt foreclosure proceedings for borrowers who qualify for such assistance.
SMR Research President Stuart Feldstein expects the program to make an impact because Bank of America/Countrywide and JPMorgan Chase/Washington Mutual account for 29.2 percent of the nation's mortgages, and another 22.6 percent are tied to Citigroup Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co.
"You don't need all of the nation's 8,000 mortgage lenders to make these announcements," notes Feldstein. "You only need a handful to influence the majority of the mortgage market."
Source: Sacramento Bee, Jim Wasserman (11/04/08)
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