Wells Fargo & Co. rolled out its HARP 2.0 program in the middle of the first quarter and GSE refinancings are just now starting to roll in, company executives said Friday morning.
“The program seems to be catching on,” said chief financial officer Tim Sloan. But he insisted the new version of the Home Affordable Refinancing Program is in an “early state” and declined to provide any origination figures.
“Given the servicing book that we have – we are going to be a large part of that program,” Sloan told analysts and investors Friday morning during a conference call on the bank's 1Q performance. (See related story on the National Mortgage News website.)
The nation's largest mortgage lender and servicer originated $129 billion of single-family loans in the first quarter with HARP accounting for 15% of the total. But bank executives noted that the 15% is mostly HARP 1.0 loans -- not the HARP 2.0 variety which is expected to help more underwater borrowers than the earlier incarnation.
Wells Fargo chairman and chief executive John Stumpf said HARP 2.0 will need to be backed by marketing, explaining to people how they can qualify for the program. “We are doing that” by using the bank's retail and mortgage networks, he said.
Stumpf indicated that Wells Fargo has a “pretty good” pipeline of HARP 2.0 loans and he expects to see more volume.
The CFO said margins on all refinancings have been good. And he noted there have been recent press reports about servicers charging higher margins on HARP refis. Sloan insisted that Wells Fargo's pricing for HARP loans is “similar to any other refinancings.”
