Wells Fargo & Co. has invited 9,500 distressed customers to a two-day Home Preservation workshop scheduled for Sept. 8 and 9 in Atlanta, the city where it introduced one of the bank's first foreclosure prevention workshops in 2009.
The number of this year's attendees in Atlanta is expected to be significantly higher than the 2,663 homeowners who met one-on-one with Wells Fargo home retention specialists two years ago.
Registered borrowers who sign up by Sept. 6 are guaranteed a face-to-face meeting with a representative at the event, which is slated to be held in the Georgia World Congress Center.
The Wells Fargo home retention team consists of about 150 members including bilingual specialists who, when possible, help attendees receive a decision on a workout while onsite or shortly following the workshop.
Free Home Preservation Workshop options are offered to distressed borrowers who received loans from Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, Wells Fargo Financial, Wachovia Mortgage and Wells Fargo Home Equity.
In the past three years since Wells Fargo introduced its first workshop in September 2009, the bank has hosted 38 workshops that have enabled 24,000 distressed borrowers to talk to a counselor face-to-face. More borrowers will receive one-on-one counseling by yearend during the next ten scheduled events.
Other upcoming home preservation workshops in September are scheduled in Orlando and Nashville. The bank said foreclosure prevention workshops also would be hosted later in the year in Washington, Kansas City, Ft. Myers, Ft. Lauderdale and Jacksonville, Fla., San Antonio, Texas, Philadelphia and Charlotte, NC.
Wells said 7.22% of the first mortgage and home equity loans serviced in-house were past due or in foreclosure during the first quarter compared to the industry average of 10.27% (according to media reports) and down from Wells Fargo's peak of 8.86% in the fourth quarter of 2009.
In the first quarter of 2011, about 93% of Wells Fargo's mortgage customers remained current on their loan payments in part due to the aggressive approach to customer education and counseling.
Wells closed 704,869 active trial and completed modifications between January 2009 and July 2011, of which 85% were in-house modification programs and 15% were done through the Home Affordable Modification Program.
