Word: redefault
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...self-interest would make firms eager to modify loans - may be wrong. Economists at MIT and the Federal Reserve banks of Boston and Atlanta have found that about 30% of borrowers who become seriously delinquent on their payments later catch up. A big deal has been made of the redefault rate - the high number of borrowers who wind up missing even modified payments - but the new finding about the large percentage of loans that "self-cure" indicates that servicers might actually be smart to delay rewriting many loans, since chances are they won't ultimately lead to foreclosure anyway...
...tricky part is figuring out who will meet their modified payments and who will simply fall behind again. The relapse rate can be quite high, meaning that we'd be spending money only to delay the inevitable. Part of what drives up the redefault rate, though, are changes that don't lower, or may even increase, a borrower's monthly payments. A lender that re-amortizes missed payments over the life of the loan might see doing so as a compromise--but that doesn't mean the mortgage becomes more affordable. That's why the FDIC insists that modifications reduce...
Consumer groups argue that part of the redefault problem is lenders' reluctance to make the sorts of changes that will really improve a homeowner's chances. While the popular notion of loan modification might have the lender lowering an interest rate or reducing the overall loan balance, many work quite differently. For example, one of the most widely implemented changes is to simply spread missed payments over the remaining life of the loan. That has the perverse effect of raising, not lowering, a homeowner's monthly payment. The nonprofit Center for Responsible Lending estimates that nearly half of the loan...
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