Wells Fargo Holds Workshops for Distressed Homeowners

With about 11 million homeowners in over their heads with their current mortgage, Wells Fargo decided to do something to help those with a home loan at its company. Helen Riggs, age 75, is one of those people. She showed up yesterday at a workshop for distressed homeowners that Wells Fargo was sponsoring in hopes of getting a reduced monthly mortgage payment.

Riggs is a distressed homeowner whose husband recently passed away. His $50,000 annual salary was more than enough to pay the $2,135 monthly mortgage payments, but since his death, Riggs does not have that much money to put toward bills. She has already gone through the $37,000 the couple had in equity in their home to pay other bills and she has had to get a job as a greeter at Costco to help make ends meet. Wells Fargo held a three-day workshop to help people like this get back in control by discussing options with them face to face.

The workshop was held earlier this week at the Oakland Marriott Center in California. More than 1,000 homeowners showed up to take advantage of this unique opportunity which was designed to help people who have found themselves “underwater” in their home loans. Many of the recent foreclosures have been the result of subprime loans which included low interest rates at first but much higher payments after a few years. With the surge in unemployment and other economic problems, millions of homeowners found themselves in financial trouble and simply lost their homes as a result.

The Wells Fargo workshop had more than 125 representatives from the company and they each spent about an hour talking to each borrower about the various programs they can use to help them get through this bump in the road. They discussed federal programs, loan modifications and other options designed to bring down their monthly payments so they can afford to stay in their homes. The discussions were held in individual booths to help ensure privacy during this often embarrassing discussion. Wells Fargo hopes to have a decision on at least half of the requests that were brought to them during the three-day event.

One piece of good news, at least for one person, occurred when Dorothy Huggins, a 63-year-old homeowners, was able to reduce her mortgage payments from $2,100 to $1,400 on her East Palo Alto home in California. Hopefully, many more homeowners will receive decisions like that. She said she has spend about two years trying to accomplish this goal but her mortgage was modified “on the spot” when she attended he workshop.

If your home loan lender holds a workshop like this in your area, be sure to check it out. You’ve got nothing to lose!