Help With Indymac Loan Modification

[Mike]

Hi I am new to this site and want to see if anyone has advice in dealing with Indymac. I am currently in a 5 year Libor ARM @ 5.1% due to reset in 2010. I wanted to refi last year but was unable to due to negative equity. We are upside down about 100k. In January I sent Indymac a hardship letter explaining that I wanted to modify the existing term to a fixed rate. I have never had a late payment, and always pay some toward principal. Indymac just got back to me last week, and said the investor ( Fannie Mae) has agreed to modify. However, Indymac wants to put me on a 5 month forbearance plan to start with. I called yesterday, and they told me the forbearance is to show the investor that I have a hardship. Is it normal to request forbearance in my situation? They also told me they would not report any information to the credit bureaus. Any help would be appreciated.