Mortgage servicers seen facing cultural change

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Mortgage servicers, who are on the front lines working with troubled homeowners facing foreclosure, are going through a major change in their business model, the executive director of the Hope Now alliance of mortgage lenders and servicers said on Wednesday.

While some have complained about slow progress to modify loans and provide workouts that keep borrowers in their homes, one of the difficulties for servicers comes from the need to build a different skill set, said Faith Schwartz, who heads the Hope Now homeowner support service put together last October.

"They are used to just collecting payments," Schwartz told the Reuters Housing Summit in New York.

"Part of this is retooling the servicing shop... This is new for them," she said.

By becoming more proactive in contacting homeowners, and learning to assess homeowner troubles in a different manner, the servicers may be more likely to come to a solution with the borrower, Schwartz said.

"If you have people get back to you and look through all the options, you have a world of options early on," Schwartz told the summit. "You can get them housing counseling about their credit."

In fact, simply changing tone and talking to homeowners from a counseling perspective and assessing their difficulties early, as Hope Now does, can keep troubled borrowers in their homes, Schwartz has found.

"People are embarrassed, people are upset and mad at their lenders, they're in denial." Schwartz said.

"We have found by offering counseling services as just an alternative to dealing with the lender, you can get better information."

The U.S. Treasury-backed Hope Now alliance was created in October to bring together mortgage lenders, servicers, investors and counselors to help subprime borrowers modify their loans, including freezing some rates at their initial, "teaser" levels.

An estimated 1.5 million subprime mortgages, traditionally targeted at borrowers with poor credit histories, will reset to higher interest rates this year, putting many owners at risk of losing their homes. Another 500,000 will reset in 2009, according to Federal Reserve estimates.

(For summit blog: summitnotebook.reuters.com/)

(Reporting by Emily Chasan; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)