I’ve been asserting for some time, based on the comments from mortgage counsellors, that mortgage mods that do not substantially reduce principal balances don’t make enough of a difference to the borrower to change outcomes. And with banks and servicers looking at 40%+ losses on many foreclosures, they can reduce principal a lot and still come out ahead.
Mortgage servicers have been experiencing high recidivism rates on loan mods, leading commentators to say that mods don’t work. However, it has been reported (Calculated Risk) that many of the so-called mods were payment catch up plans, and not true mods, but the composition of the balance was unclear. Thus it was similarly not certain whether my view was correct.
Some support comes from Wilbur Ross, no soft touch, but a distressed investor (they are not called vultures in polite company). He owns American Home Servicing, the biggest third party servicer in the US. He also offers a program for how to deal with the housing crisis.
Note that American Home Servicing has done a lot of loan mods. Ross makes no mention of the supposed legal obstacles to making mods. That suggests the issue is way overblown (as in investors in theory might sue, but no one is a big enough holder in any one trust for it to be worth the trouble). That also indicates the real obstacle is some combination of servicer greed (lack of financial incentives to do mods, costs of adding staff to do mods) and concerns about impact to bank balance sheet. Recall that AHS is third party. Most other big servicers are part of big banks. If the servicer starts offering mods, say, with 25% principal reductions, it would suggest that any similar loans held by the parent bank ought to be marked down to the same level.
From HousingWire:
[Wilbur] Ross has plenty of skin in the mortgage servicing game, as he owns Irving, Tex.-based American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc., which recently became the nation’s largest third-party servicer with the acquisition of a large portfolio from Citigroup Inc. (C: 2.51 -13.75%). See earlier coverage.Last week, Ross told HousingWire in an interview that he thinks the best way to motivate lenders, servicers, and homeowners work together on modifications requires far more than what’s been proposed so far. In particular, he believes that what’s needed is aggressive principal modifications for borrowers most in need. He has said that his American Home servicing shop has seen six-month recidivism rates below 20 percent — compared to the 50 or 60 percent standard in the industry — because the servicer has been aggressively looking to cut principal balances.
“The price of housing needs to be cleaned out. The Obama administration could right-size every underwater home and reduce principal to fit the current market value of the home. If they are going to deal with it they have to deal with it in a severe way,” Ross told HousingWire. “They also really need to consider all borrowers who are underwater, and not just the ones that have gone into default.”
The Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan does some of that, but doesn’t go far enough, Ross suggested. “The have to reduce the principal amount of loan, not just nonperforming loans, but also performing ones,” he told CNBC. “Why should a guy who’s not paying benefit, while some poor citizen who’s struggling to make the payments gets stuck with the mortgage?”
His own plan looks something like this:
1. The lender takes a write-down in principal, and the servicer takes a similar hit on any servicing strip on the newly-reduced UPB.2. After principal reduction, the government guarantees half of the remaining principal the lender now holds.
3. This guarantee of half the principal can now be sold into the securitization market, which will give the lender an income stream on the home again and offset some of the losses the owner of the loan has to take when they write down the principal.
4. When the house is sold, if the value of the home has gone up at the point of sale, the homeowner and the lender share in the profits earned on the gain.
Ross isn’t the first to suggest an home equity sharing plan, and there are clearly strong complexities in how any such plan would be put together, particularly as it relates to second lien holders and/or investors in junior bond classes. But the fact that a large investor with such a strong hand in the servicing business is suggesting it’s possible at all to accomplish is something that perhaps bears more attention than the idea has been getting as of late.
Anonymous 
Posts
Instead of modifying mortgages, why not modify foreclosure law to allow occupants to remain in their houses and pay rent at the current market value?
Maybe this is a cockamamy idea (probably is, most of mine are), but I can see some good in it: First, persons who can’t keep up with their too-high mortgage payments (because the house is overpriced) could afford the rent. They need not fear eviction and homelessness so much.
And second, the mortgage holders (whoever they turn out to be) would continue to receive a stream of income reflecting the true market value of their propoerties.
Everybody takes a haircut, but with a lot less pain and disruption.