Reworked loans climb nearly 20%

New payment plans on mortgages to the most credit-worthy homeowners jumped nearly 20% in the first quarter of 2008, while “workouts” for sub-prime borrowers leveled off, an industry alliance said.

Changes to repayment schedules or contractual terms of loans to prime borrowers helped push total mortgage workouts to 502,520 in the first quarter. That marked a 6% increase over the fourth quarter and a 26% leap from the third quarter of last year, according to Hope Now, an alliance of mortgage servicing and counseling companies.