Countrywide Assists Its At-Risk Customers

Countrywide, a major mortgage lender in the United States, has been under fire lately both on the financial front and from critics in the financial world. The lender experienced huge growth during the mortgage boom by extending large mortgages to credit-suspect borrowers. The loans it issued were very often of the ‘creative’ variety that involved low, interest-only or negative amortization payments that allowed people to buy much more house than they probably should have.

As interest rates have risen more and more Countrywide customers have experienced hardship and even foreclosure. But now the mortgage giant is doing something to help – they’re offering foreclosure prevention programs to keep more of its clients from defaulting on their loans.

A formerly harsh critic of Countrywide, Bruce Marks, has now teamed up with the company in order to protect and assist at-risk homeowners. Marks sounds positively ecstatic about the joint-effort. “Countrywide is going to restructure loans for people with unaffordable loans to rates that people can afford to pay,” Marks said.*

Countrywide is taking a two-pronged approach to helping distressed borrowers:

1. They’re offering low-cost refinancing to to over 50,000 borrowers that provide them with more manageable payments.

2. They’re offering some 20,000 other borrowers extended terms on their temporary low-rate loans.

The consensus from borrowers in trouble and consumer advocacy groups is that Countrywide is doing the right thing and making big steps in slowing and preventing the credit crisis in the US.

*Source: money.cnn.com