Obama Foreclosure Plan Falling Far Short Of Targets

[The Northerner]

Source: Huffington Post

The Obama administration disclosed on Friday that it has made little progress in helping struggling homeowners attain long-term relief under its signature foreclosure-prevention effort, reaching only 18 percent of the target announced just six weeks ago.

On Nov. 30, the administration kicked off a "Mortgage Modification Conversion Drive" to help distressed borrowers in the trial phase of its program convert to permanent mortgage modifications.

"Roughly 375,000 of the borrowers who have begun trial modifications since the start of the program are scheduled to convert to permanent modifications by the end of the year," read the Treasury Department's press release that day.

At the time 31,382 borrowers had received permanently lower payments. The final tally for the year, announced on Friday, was 66,465, with another 46,056 awaiting signatures by borrowers.

And even that only came after Treasury sent employees to various mortgage servicers in an effort to understand why more homeowners weren't being helped, and to get servicers to redouble their efforts. They were dubbed "SWAT teams."

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/15/obama-foreclosure-plan-fa_n_425119.html

[4dsc]

1. Walk away would be the best advice for most homeowners

Give it back to the banks just like businesses do in rough times..

[PSPS]

2. It's not hard to figure out why

When you actually have to document your income, it's impossible to qualify for a "real" loan to replace the no-doc zero-down neg-amort liar's loan that was used to buy more than the borrower could really afford. Instead of trying to prop up still-inflated housing prices with these crazy ideas, let the market work it out. Only after these houses are foreclosed is there any hope for a return to a normal real estate market.

[IndianaGreen]

3. Do we consider this a SUCCESS in the poll of promises kept that was posted in DU?

I am not sure how to rate this.

[Igel]

4. I'm not sure how to rate it by that standard, either.

It fails another one, though: The plan rested on bad assumptions, more than a couple of which were pointed out early on. Some weren't, but were completely foreseeable.

Instead of thinking critically as to whether the assumptions were true, false, or probably true or false, the critiques were rejected as purely partisan criticism. In other word, there's no need to consider the claims not because they're shown to be false, but because of the bringers' partisan affiliation. Since most people making this "argument" didn't bother to deal with the claims, this counts as a fallacy.