Hope Now Reports Mortgage Modification Gains for Homeowners

Hope Now Reports Mortgage Modification Gains for Homeowners
December 3, 2009, USA TODAY

Nearly 2.7 million homeowners this year have received mortgage modifications or repayment plans, independent of those helped by a government program to get borrowers into modified home loans, a private-sector group supported by the mortgage industry said Wednesday. The progress report from Hope Now comes as the mortgage industry is facing increasing pressure from the Obama administration to more quickly grant permanent modifications under its program. There have been 650,000 trial modifications implemented through the government's program, but only about 1,700 permanent modifications as of early September, the latest figures made public.

Why the Loan-Modification Program Isn't Working
December 4, 2009, TIME

The Obama Administration is gearing up to play hardball with mortgage companies that only temporarily lower struggling homeowners' monthly payments. But as the drive to make more loan modifications permanent kicks off, there's a weightier question to ask: Can the government's $50 billion foreclosure- The problem the Administration is out to tackle is related to the structure of the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). The first three months of a mortgage rewrite are something of a probation period— and very few homeowners are making it out of that trial. More than 650,000 borrowers have been placed in trial modifications, but as of September, fewer than 2,000 had become permanent.

Treasury Pushes Mortgage Firms for Loan Relief
November 30, New York Times

The Obama administration disclosed a plan on Monday intended to increase pressure on mortgage companies to permanently reduce monthly payments for troubled homeowners. Under the guidelines, the government will fine lenders that fail to find ways to increase the number of homeowners who are given relief on their mortgage bills.

America's Newest Land Baron: FDIC
November 17, 2009 Wall Street Journal

In the waning days of the Great Recession, the federal government is still jumpstarting the economy and propping up financial markets. It is also trying to sell Dresden Heights, a failed condo development on a noisy freeway ramp next to a Motel 6, a Waffle House and a Do-It-Yourself Pest Control. For more than a year, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has been seeking a buyer for 36 partially built condos it inherited from a high-flying, short-lived Atlanta bank.  In the past two years, the FDIC has taken over 150 failed banks. In the process, it has seized more than 5,000 houses, subdivisions, buildings, parcels and other foreclosed assets. The current backlog of property stuck on the agency's books, with an appraised value of $1.8 billion, ranges from an $18,700 clapboard home with stained carpets in Birmingham, Ala., to a $1.7 million mountainside lodge with a heated driveway in Steamboat Springs, Colo.