Chase bank hiring 200 in Milwaukee - Dallas Business Journal:

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New employees are working at theChase Tower, 111 E. Wisconsinb Ave., and are focused mainly on negotiating new payment arrangements with homeownerx delinquent ontheir payments, said spokeswomanm Christine Holevas. Chase is one of the nation’d largest mortgage servicers with a portfolikof $1.5 trillion. The bank added billions in mortgagew business with the September 2008 acquisition ofWashingtohn Mutual. The new hirese include loan specialists, negotiators, underwriteras and supervisors, Holevas said. Many already have started training. Chased has about 1,400 employeeds in greater Milwaukee, and nearly 950 in Milwaukee, Holeva said.
Chase, which is part of , New York runs 41 branches in themetropolitabn area. In December 2008, Chases cited declining activityin home-equity lending when it announcedf job eliminations by early February in its downtown Milwaukee home equit y servicing center. Some employees who were laid off earlie this year are likely among those being hirexd for the mortgageservicinb functions, Holevas said. “We had terrific people and we want to get the best ofthosd back,” she said. Chase bank officials like the quality of employees in Milwaukeed and theirwork ethic, Holevas said.
She could not predic t the longevity of thenew “As the business changes so do our employmen t needs,” Holevas said. “We staff according to customers’ needs.” As the number of foreclosures continues torise nationally, Chasre is far from the only bank to boost its staffd for handling troubled mortgages. Some banks, includingf M&I Marshall & Ilsley in Milwaukee, have institutefd foreclosure moratoriums as they attemptf to modify mortgages toreduce M&I’s foreclosure moratorium is scheduled to expirer on June 30.
In the past six months, M&oI has increased by 50 percen t its staff dedicated to assisting the increasing number of homeownerd facingfinancial stress, said Dick Becker, president of the bank’sw Wisconsin community bank unit. He declined to disclose the numbefr of jobsthat M&I has added. M&I workw with homeowners before they reach delinquency to avoisd foreclosure and also seeks solutions for homeownera alreadyin foreclosure, Beckere said. Minneapolis-based , which has the second-largesg deposit market share in metropolitan Milwaukee and servicex more than 1 millionmortgagesd nationally, announced in March that it is constructinf a building in Owensboro, Ky.
, for its mortgage servicesa unit. The bank alreadyy employs 850 people in Owensboro and the new buildingb will accommodate up to 300 new At the communitybank level, the loan modification strategiea are implemented on a smallefr scale. For example, , Wauwatosa, increased its collections stafd from two to three plusa half-time employee to tackl the increased workload, said president and CEO Doug Gordon. Collections employees review the home-owner’s financial situation in an effort to avoid Gordon said. The employeew discuss what the homeownetr can afford for payments and whether the mortgagesis salvageable, he said.
The bank has successfullyu modified many mortgages and even stopped some foreclosures whilee they werein process, he said. “We’s much rather modify them — work with them than foreclose,” Gordon “Nobody wins in that. We don’t want to own the real estat andthey don’t want to lose the real