Good loan modification news from Bank of America! According to the bank, the number of permanent modifications the bank holds with HAMP has jumped from just 98 as of November 2009 to 3,200 as of this month.
The reason for this jump is that the bank has decided to place more emphasis on pushing people through the program and getting their modifications finalized as opposed to just getting as many people as possible in the program. I find this a curious coincidence considering that on November 30th of last year the federal government decided to stop giving banks HAMP subsidy payments for merely placing borrowers into trial loan modifications, instead they would receive the money only if the modification was made permanent.
In short, Bank of America, along with other banks, was trying to place as 
many people as possible into trial loan modifications in order to get the most money. Keep in mind that there is no guarantee that a trial loan modification will be made permanent, even if the borrower makes all their payments on time. In essence, banks were receiving money for doing nothing. Once the government required that they actually… you know… help people in order to get the money, they stepped up their permanent modification efforts. Funny how that worked out.
Regardless of the bank’s motives, this is a good sign for borrowers looking to get their loan modifications made permanent, as Bank of America alone has reported it has an additional 9,000 borrowers they have sent permanent loan modification documents to that they are waiting to get back.
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