Surry Business

Countrywide Financial Corp., the nation’s largest mortgage lender, announced it will begin calling borrowers to offer refinancing or modifications on $16 billion in loans with interest rates set to adjust by the end of 2008.

Other financial institutions also may help financially strapped borrowers hang on to their homes, The Associated Press reported Sunday.

Moody’s Investors Service surveyed 16 mortgage servicers who account for 80 percent of the market for subprime loans. According to The Associated Press, Moody’s found that most of those companies had modified about 1 percent of loans with interest rates that reset in the first half of this year.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said its members also are helping borrowers with temporary reductions of monthly payments or by spreading delinquent amounts over future payments.

Countrywide Financial said more than 500,000 of its loans were behind in payments in September and about 82,000 were in foreclosure proceedings. Countrywide said it has completed about 20,000 loan modifications, intends to refinance about $10 billion in loans and will modify an additional $4 billion, and will help at least 40,000 borrowers. Countrywide Financial holds about 8.9 million loans valued at $1.45 trillion.

Wells Fargo & Co., with a mortgage-servicing portfolio of $1.41 trillion at the end of June, told The Associated Press less than 4.5 percent of its loans were delinquent at the end of June and 0.56 percent had entered foreclosure.

Bank of America Corp., the nation’s second-largest bank, said it modified 3,200 home loans representing $240 million during the eight months ended Aug. 30 and had 192 homes in foreclosure as of Sept. 30.