They Say They are Helping Underwater Homeowners, are they really?

Yesterday, while at my local WaMU cum Chase branch, I was kibbitzing with the manager and asked about the company's current efforts to aid underwater homeowners. She said she hadn't a clue. And when I asked about local or regional staff available to help these unfortunates, she said there was one person called a 'floater', who comes to the branch about once a week to help with new loan applications. OK, that is for new business origination only. (A quick side note: rumor on the street says the Chase is no longer originating loans)

Again I wondered about what the bank is doing with its huge portfolio of non-performing (eg. defaulted) real estate loans (see Recent Loan Defaults and newly redefaults? So, I went to the corporate website (JP Morgan Chase) and searched all of the terms I could think of relating to defaults to see what jobs were being posted. None! Zip! Nada! Nyet! How can that be?

The situation begs for lenders who are incentivized, and protected by Treasury against losses, to help get us out of this quagmire that some estimate to comprise more than 7.0 million homeowners in distress. And one of the largest holders of defaulted assets in the nation doesn't have a single job opening posted on its website.

Go figure!