Jones, whose recent duties in Corona included badgering the owners of foreclosed homes to maintain the properties, had survived a round of city layoffs this spring but was not so lucky when Oct. 2 arrived.
"I came in that morning and I was gone by 10 a.m.," she said. To make things worse, her daughter recently had been laid off from the preschool.
Jones figures she owes about $100,000 more on the mortgages than her home's current value. She said she notified Bank of America Corp.'s Countrywide unit, which funded both loans, soon after she lost her job -- the approach the lender urges troubled borrowers to take.
But the Calabasas lender declined to talk about changing the loan terms so long as she was current on payments, she said. So she intentionally missed an Oct. 15 deadline, then called Countrywide again and asked for help.
The lender offered to reduce her total payment to $1,500 for three months, adding the difference back to her loan balance, she said. But when Countrywide said the arrangement would damage her credit score, she declined the offer, dipping into her savings to make the full payments.
Asked for comment early this month, Countrywide didn't dispute Jones' account. Representatives of the lender called later that day with a better offer. Jones said late last week that she was working with Countrywide to finalize a deal that would lower her payments for three months -- with an option for significant, longer-term modifications.
Levy, the Palo Alto economist, said stories like Jones' and the ominous mortgage delinquency trends illustrated the "critical importance" for the economy of having lenders work to keep troubled borrowers in their homes.
"The only practical help in sight is to get as many of these potential foreclosures modified as possible, so they come off the market," he said.
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scott.reckard@latimes.com
