Banks across America are mounting a hiring surge right now. Why? They are gearing up for what lies ahead…more defaults, more short sales and more foreclosures. Collectively, the big 4, including Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo and Citi have recently added over 17,000 new employees to their payroll to help manage the volume of loan modification and short sale requests as well as the disposal of foreclosures. And the most ambitious are those that have a large number of Alt-A (Interest Only and Option ARM) loans. Wachovia, for example, is loaded with these loan products. They were recently acquired by Wells Fargo so now it’s Wells Fargo’s responsibility to deal with the mess that is going to be hitting them this summer when many of these Alt-A loans begin re-casting to fully amortized loans.
Experts are predicting more mortgage mayhem. Now you can see why banks are on a hiring surge. 2010 and 2011 are shaping up to be as big (if not bigger), than the sub prime meltdown of 2007 and 2008. Believe it or not, 2009 was the “eye” of the storm.
When you study what the banks are doing, hiring tons of employees to gear up for more defults, short sales and foreclosures, that should give you a clue as to what lies ahead…you guessed it…more defaults, short sales and foreclosures. Short sales and foreclosures dominate the residential (and soon to be commercial) real estate markets.
Bottom line…there is no shortage of short sales and foreclosures in our area or in this country.
