Wells Fargo says it had more than 523,000 mortgage modifications in place as of March 31

Wells Fargo says modified over 523,000 mortgages

DES MOINES — Wells Fargo & Co. said Wednesday that as of March 31, 523,336 of its mortgages were modified or put in active trial through the bank’s own programs and the federal government’s foreclosure-prevention program.

Of that total, Wells Fargo has handled about 380,000 under its own programs since the start of 2009, the company said. Wells Fargo also reported 144,932 federal active trial and completed modifications as of March 31, including 30,014 permanent modifications and another 9,162 pending completion.

“HAMP (the federal Home Affordable Modification Program) is the starting point in our efforts to help borrowers facing financial challenges, but we been very successful in finding other workout options when a customer is not eligible for HAMP,” said Mike Heid, co-president of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, in a statement.

San Francisco-based Wells Fargo said it has started or completed three mortgage modifications for every one foreclosure sale on owner-occupied properties that has taken place between October 2009 through March. Fewer than 2 percent of the loans secured by owner-occupied homes and serviced by Wells Fargo have gone into foreclosure sale in the last 12 months, the company said.

Wells Fargo said it has added more than 10,000 home retention staff since the beginning of 2009 and now has about 17,400 U.S.-based staff focused on these efforts.

Banks have come under fire for not doing enough to help borrowers as part of the Obama administration’s $75 billion mortgage relief program. Wells Fargo, along with Citigroup, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, appeared in front of the House Financial Services committee on Tuesday to discuss the matter.

Through March, more than 230,000 homeowners had completed loan modifications. That’s only about 21 percent of the 1.1 million borrowers who began the program over the past year, the Treasury Department said late Tuesday.

Last month, the administration launched a plan to cut the amount some troubled borrowers owe on their home loans and give jobless homeowners a temporary break. But the details of those programs are expected to take months to work out and ultimately have only a modest impact.

Shares of Wells Fargo rose $1.13 to finish at $33.28 in regular trading Wednesday.