Citigroup Inc. announced today that it will modify the terms on $20 billion of mortgages. CitiMortgage – the company’s mortgage unit, will lower interest rates on loans, extend loan lengths and in extreme cases reduce the amount of debt owed. The program will be offered to all borrowers, regardless of credit scores, in an effort to prevent more delinquencies.
Sanjiv Das, CEO, CitiMortgage, says, “The real problem in the U.S. now is increasing unemployment. We are finding that people across the board need help.”
The unemployment rate was 6.5% in October, up from 4.7% a year earlier. That translates into 10.1 million unemployed workers, compared with 7.1 million last year.
Citi aims to help more than 500,000 of its mortgage customers and says about 130,000 of them will see lower monthly mortgage payments. The modification program has been tested for the past three months. Average monthly loan payments have been reduced by about 40%.
Once again, I agree with Jeff. It looks like its the folks at Citi’s turn to use the one brain that has been allocated to all of the banking industry to share between them. I am glad to see they are putting it to use. Does anyone know if you have to be in arrears to get some relief? Now that I think of it, my mortgage is with Citi. I have never missed a payment or even been late. But if this is for everybody, then heck, maybe I can get a piece of this action.
Thanks,
Tim