Citi decides not to play Scrooge for the holidays, but in January all bets are off

Trying to repair an image that is pretty bad right now, Citi has decided not to pursue foreclosures for the Christmas holidays. But, because life does go on, they will start back up again in January. Citi estimates this will benefit about 2,000 homeowners, albeit temporarily. What if Citi got some real Christmas cheer and looked seriously at some of the 100,000 loan modification requests they have received? That would be something. Unfortunately, Citi has only modified 270 of those loans. Think about that--a 2.7% loan modification rate. That is pretty bad and brings us back to the point discussed on this blog many times: the only way lenders will make serious changes to their loan modification process is if Congress allows mortgages to be modified in Chapter 13 bankruptcy. Will it happen? Only time will tell.