HispanicBusiness

Among Wells Fargo mortgage customers, 95 percent of San Diego County customers are making their mortgage payments and 91 percent of customers in Riverside and San Bernardino counties are making their payments on time, bank officials said.

Nationally, 92 percent of borrowers are paying on time, and in California 94 percent are paying on time, said Diana Stauffer, senior vice president and regional servicing director for Wells Fargo in California. Stauffer was in town to help run Wells Fargo's Home Preservation workshop on Wednesday at the San Diego Convention Center for Wells Fargo mortgage customers struggling to make mortgage payments.

Stauffer's statistics match a recent trend toward fewer foreclosures. In 2011 in North County, lenders took back at foreclosure auctions 11 houses per 1,000 households, down 14 percent from 2010.

In Southwest Riverside County, where the foreclosure crisis was more severe, the drop was more dramatic. Lenders took back 27.4 houses per 1,000 households at auction, down 20.2 percent from 2010.

But there are still huge numbers of locals struggling to make payments, or who owe more on their homes than their property is worth. At the event Wednesday, Wells Fargo had 75 specialists, all of whom were empowered to make immediate decisions on modifying loans to lower payments or possibly even forgive some of the principle of a mortgage (Statewide, Wells Fargo has forgiven over $3 billion in principle to help people get current on their loans). The event also had federal government-approved housing counselors if people needed other advice.

Wells Fargo invited 9,000 customers from San Diego and Southwest Riverside counties to attend. They expected 400 homeowners, including walk-ins, to turn up for the event, said Katy Fitzsimmons. Of those, 25 percent would get a decision on their mortgages on the spot.

The events are intended to short-circuit some of the frustration homeowners feel when dealing with their banks. One recurring problem for some homeowners has been the need to send and resend their financial documents.

"The challenge is we see a lot of incomplete packages," Stauffer said. "We see a lot of stops and starts, and they maybe submit 3/4 of their paperwork and then they stop and they restart 3 months later. But some of their paperwork is stale and they have to resubmit. And then we have people who are in the middle of the process, and then somebody loses a job. It's just not linear."

She would later add, "I'm not trying to say we're perfect and never lose a piece of paper, but it's a challenge."

She also said the bank had tripled the number of mortgage specialists to 15,500 people since 2006.

Stauffer also discussed why short sales, in which a borrower tries to sell their house for less than they owe in loans, are most likely to fall apart.

"The number one reason why short sales fall out, the number one thing is incomplete packages or stale documents -- it's actually very similar on the (loan) mod side -- and, still, we're getting low offers, when we're looking for market value."

She also explained why Wachovia short sales and loan modifications seem to get done much faster than Wells Fargo modifications, something local real estate agents have noticed for years. Wells Fargo owns 20 percent of the loans in its portfolio, including Wachovia loans. On these loans, Wells Fargo can make decisions quickly and get deals done. It offers services, like billing and short sale negotiation, on 69 percent of its loans which are owned by government lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and by the Federal Housing Administration. The last 11 percent are owned by other investors. In these cases, Wells Fargo is a middleman, and must communicate back to investors in order to make deals, Stauffer said.

Ultimately, Stauffer's biggest concern for homeowners was that they get started early in the process, or even before they've missed a payment.

"Any sign of hardship, they should talk to us," she said.