In total, that’s more than a 25% decline. And by that time, moreover, the level of satisfaction is only about half that of borrowers whose loans were written and administered by the same company, Power says. Indeed, after a mortgage was transferred, only 15 percent of those customers said they were “very likely” to consider using the original lender sometime down the road.
Hide, Not Help
Is it any wonder, then, that when a borrower finds himself in financial straits and is having trouble making his payments, no matter which outfit is collecting them, he tends to hide rather than come forward and ask for help? Even when the lender/servicer reaches out, borrowers tend to ignore them.
Part of that, of course, is that many borrowers think they’ll be able to rectify their situations all by their lonesomes. Another part is that some just bury their heads in the sand, hoping their problems will magically disappear on their own. But some folks just lose faith in the entire process, so much so they think they’ll just be spat upon again.
This all matters because more and more borrowers are finding themselves in financial difficulty of late. In August, the latest figures available as I am typing this on my old Royal Plus, foreclosure notices were filed against 34,500 properties country-wide, according to ATTOM, the real estate data company. That’s up 14% from July, and 118% from August a year ago.
Black Knight also reports that foreclosure starts bumped up in August. Repo filings were still about half what they were during the pandemic, but up, nevertheless. And it’s likely to get worse, according to LendingTree. By and large, most people are not behind on their payments, the lender-borrower matching service said. But nearly one million face the threat of foreclosure “in the next two months,” the outfit reported in late September.