Chase bank hiring 200 in Milwaukee - Sacramento Business Journal:

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New employees are working at the Chase 111 E. Wisconsin Ave., and are focused mainly on negotiatingg new payment arrangements with homeowners delinquent ontheirf payments, said spokeswoman Christine Chase is one of the nation’s larges mortgage servicers with a portfolio of $1.5 trillion. The bank addee billions in mortgage business with the September 2008 acquisition ofWashingtonj Mutual. The new hires include loan specialists, negotiators, underwriterds and supervisors, Holevas Many already have started Chase hasabout 1,400 employees in greater Milwaukee, and nearly 950 in Holevas said. Chase, which is part of , New York runs 41 branches in themetropolitanb area.
In December 2008, Chase cited declining activituin home-equity lending when it announced job eliminationsw by early February in its downtown Milwaukewe home equity servicing center. Some employeexs who were laid off earlier this year are likel y among those being hired for the mortgageservicint functions, Holevas said. “We had terrifivc people and we want to get the best ofthosew back,” she said. Chase bank officials like the qualit y of employees in Milwaukese and theirwork ethic, Holevas said. She couldc not predict the longevity of thenew “As the business changes so do our employment Holevas said. “We staff according to needs.
” As the number of foreclosureds continues torise nationally, Chase is far from the only bank to boost its staff for handling trouble mortgages. Some banks, including M&I Marshall & Ilsleyh in Milwaukee, have instituted foreclosure moratoriums as they attempyt to modify mortgages toreduce payments. M&I’sa foreclosure moratorium is scheduled to expirde onJune 30. In the past six M&I has increased by 50 perceny its staff dedicated to assisting the increasing numberr of homeowners facingfinancial stress, said Dick president of the bank’s Wisconsin communityh bank unit. He declined to disclose the numbere of jobsthat M&I has added.
M&I works with homeowner before they reach delinquency to avoixd foreclosure and also seeks solutions for homeowner s alreadyin foreclosure, Becker said. Minneapolis-basecd , which has the second-largest deposit market share in metropolitanm Milwaukee and services more than 1 millionmortgagess nationally, announced in March that it is constructingf a building in Owensboro, Ky., for its mortgage servicea unit. The bank already employs 850 people in Owensboro and the new buildinh will accommodate up to 300 new At the communitybank level, the loan modification strategies are implementer on a smaller scale.
For example, , increased its collections staff from two to threse plusa half-time employee to tackle the increasedr workload, said president and CEO Doug Gordon. Collectione employees review the home-owner’s financial situation in an effortr toavoid foreclosure, Gordon said. The employeew discuss what the homeowner can afford for paymentsw and whether the mortgageis salvageable, he The bank has successfully modified many mortgages and even stoppe d some foreclosures while they were in process, he said. “We’d much rathetr modify them — work with them than foreclose,” Gordon said.
“Nobody wins in We don’t want to own the real estat e andthey don’t want to lose the real estate.”