Chase Approves 138,000 Trial Mortgage Modifications in the Last Three Months

Chase announced today that it has approved 138,000 trial mortgage modifications for struggling homeowners since April 6, when it began processing trial modifications through President Obama’s Making Home Affordable program.

Since 2007, Chase has continued to expand its comprehensive plan to keep families in their homes, helping prevent 565,000 foreclosures – including the 138,000 trial modifications -- for Chase, WaMu and EMC customers. Another 155,000 applications are in the review process.

"We have made terrific progress since April 6 in helping families with trial modifications by ramping up our capacity through hiring people, adding office space and investing in technology,” said Charlie Scharf, head of Retail Financial Services at JPMorgan Chase & Co. "We also clearly understand that many more families are anxious about their homes and need to hear from us as quickly as possible. We are committed to do whatever is necessary to help homeowners who qualify for these programs.”

Chase has approved the trial modifications under:

The Making Home Affordable Program: Chase first determines whether struggling homeowners qualify for this program and already has approved 87,100 trial modifications; 44,100 of these customers have made their first modified payment.

For borrowers facing financial hardship, the program seeks to reduce mortgage payments for principal, interest, property taxes and hazard insurance to 31 percent of their gross income, usually by reducing the interest rate or extending the length of the loan.

Chase’s Modification Program: This program is used for loans that do not qualify for the Making Home Affordable Program. Chase has approved 50,900 trial modifications, and 9,500 of them have already made their first modified payment.

Both modification programs require the borrower to make three modified payments in full and on time and to submit additional documentation, including income verification, so that the modifications can become permanent.

"We are encouraged that more than 53,000 families have already made the first payment for their trial modifications,” Scharf said. "But we know it is extremely early in the program, so it is difficult to gauge its ultimate success.”

Chase generally stops foreclosure while reviewing a mortgage for modification. If a loan does not qualify for a Making Home Affordable or a Chase modification, it is referred to the loss mitigation department, which will consider more traditional plans as well as short sales and deeds in lieu of foreclosure.

Chase started taking steps to implement the Making Home Affordable Program before initial details were announced in early March and began processing trial loan modifications April 6 even as the government continues to make additional key decisions about the program and communicate them to mortgage servicers.

"It has taken some time to put the resources in place to handle the extraordinary customer demand during this crisis, to incorporate each update to the Making Home Affordable Program, and then to properly evaluate each borrower’s situation,” Scharf said. "Over the last three months, we have made great improvements and we expect the numbers of approved modifications to continue to grow for some time.”

In the last three months, there have been more than 1.9 million visits to Chase’s www.chase.com/myhome website, which provides information to help struggling homeowners, including downloadable applications for mortgage modifications.

Since January 1, Chase has:

• Added 950 loan counselors, bringing the total to 3,500, and it plans to add hundreds more in the weeks ahead.
• Hired 2,000 additional mortgage operations employees to handle the unprecedented volume generated by the troubled economy and housing market.
• Opened 27 Chase Homeownership Centers – three more than originally planned -- where struggling borrowers around the country can meet face to face with trained counselors. More than 20,000 borrowers have met with counselors at the centers.

Chase services about 10.3 million loans, including about 8 million loans for investors.

About Chase

Chase is the U.S. consumer and commercial banking business of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), which operates more than 5,000 branches and 14,000 ATMs nationally under the Chase and WaMu brands. Chase has 159 million credit cards issued and serves consumers and small businesses through bank branches, ATMs and mortgage offices as well as through relationships with auto dealerships and schools and universities. More information about Chase is available at www.chase.com.