IndyMac is calling. Will you answer?
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The L.A. Times goes out front today with the story of the difficulty IndyMac is having in its efforts to reach troubled borrowers to talk about loan modifications. (Hey, if I had lied about my income to get a mortgage, and a government-run bank wanted to talk to me about said mortgage, I probably wouldn’t answer the phone either.)
Seriously:
...when the FDIC, which is running IndyMac, mailed out 35,000 letters offering homeowners a chance to rework the terms of their mortgages, more than half the borrowers were apparently so discouraged, scared or stressed out that they didn’t bother to respond.
Relatedly, from Reuters:
JPMorgan Chase & Co is making changes to about $110 billion in mortgages to help its borrowers and is temporarily halting foreclosures while it alters the loans. The bank said on Friday it is expanding efforts to renegotiate loans for more borrowers, including customers it inherited when it bought struggling Seattle-based bank Washington Mutual last month.
Two cents, way off topic: The news that IndyMac’s ambitious loan modification program is off to a slow start was reported last week by Tanta at Calculated Risk, in one of her typically insightful, well-written posts. I mention that not as a hat tip to Tanta (or to myself for linking to Tanta’s post), but to make a larger point: There is much discussion these days about shrinking newspapers and the decline of journalism. No doubt, newspapers are in trouble. But journalism is not. It is being practiced today by more smart, passionate people than ever before -- people like Tanta. True, she is not a traditional journalist -- she doesn’t work for a newspaper or a wire service, and her identity is a mystery. But she knows her stuff (her online bio says she’s a former bank officer and mortgage lending specialist) and she’s an enterprising, engaging and informative writer. She’s a journalist, in the best sense of the word. And she’s part of a growing army of smart, passionate, serious-minded bloggers, an army that didn’t exist when I started in this business 21 years ago. It’s a good thing.
-- Peter Viles
Your thoughts? Comments? And yes, I have a crush on Tanta. So sue me. I think Laker does too.
Photo Credit: A.P.