By Dawn Kopecki March 12 (Bloomberg) — The Obama administration’s foreclosure prevention program shed 24 percent of the almost 1.1 million borrowers who arranged trial loan modifications through February, the Treasury Department reported. Lenders in the Home Affordable Modification Program led by Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. successfully converted 168,708 trial plans into permanent loan revisions, up from 116,297 through the end of January, the Treasury said today in a report. More than 666,000 borrowers were in trial repayment plans, Treasury said. The program is short of the 3 million to 4 million at-risk homeowners Obama targeted when it was announced a year ago. The plan had 835,194 active trial modifications out of 1.1 million started. About 2.82 million U.S. homeowners lost their properties to foreclosure last year and 4.5 million filings are expected in 2010, RealtyTrac Inc. said last month. Bank of America, which accounts for almost a third of the 3.4 million borrowers eligible for the program, led mortgage servicers in permanent modifications with 22,303 borrowers in such plans. JPMorgan, which had 437,323 eligible loans, revamped 20,450. Total borrowers in trial plans fell 6.7 percent to 666,486 from 714,141 as lenders pushed to make the plans permanent or dropped the customers from the program. San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. said it canceled agreements with 19,000 borrowers in trial modification plans as it stepped “up its efforts to make final decisions on trials where customers have made all required payments.” The bank has permanently modified 7,533 loans through February. To contact the reporter on this story: Dawn Kopecki in Washington at dkopecki@bloomberg.net
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Obama’s Mortgage-Modification Trial Program Loses 24% of Its Participants
