Nearly 50 percent leave Obama mortgage-aid program

[The Northerner]

WASHINGTON – Nearly half of the homeowners who enrolled in the Obama administration's flagship mortgage-relief program have fallen out.

A new report issued on Friday by the Treasury Department said that approximately 630,000 people who had tried to get their monthly mortgage payments lowered through the effort have been cut loose through July. That's about 48 percent of the 1.3 million homeowners who had enrolled since March 2009. That is up from more than 40 percent through June.

The report suggests foreclosures could rise in the second half of the year and weaken the ailing housing market, analysts say.

Another 421,804, or 32.3 percent of those who started the program, have received permanent loan modifications and are making their payments on time.

Many borrowers have complained that program is a bureaucratic nightmare. They say banks often lose their documents and then claim borrowers did not send back the necessary paperwork.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100820/ap_on_bi_ge/us_mortgage_aid

Huh? What's going on in that program?

Who's running it anyway?

Someone needs in the administration needs to scrutinize its problems.

[bigtree]

1. mine worked out, fwiw

gmac

[tridim]

2. HUD is running it now, at least from what I've heard.

My meeting is next week.

The bank is no help at all. All they do is spam my phone a dozen times a day.

[SammyWinstonJack]

3. Half measures and lip service.

Chump CHANGE!

[Greyhound]

4. Who do you think runs it? With no requirements for the banksters to participate

and loopholes large enough for a C-5 to fly through, this policy was nothing but a fig leaf from its inception. Another political excuse to justify the greatest theft in history that does nothing to address the real problem.

Add to that the work-around that the banksters use to profit from refusing and delaying to work with borrowers, coupled with the losses being dumped onto the taxpayer, and the program's imminent failure was preordained.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

5. The program is defective

I know several people who have tried to get relief through it and, as the OP says, they are informed (incorrectly) that they didn't file the right paperwork or didn't file on time.

And, in some cases the bank then offers a slightly less-good deal from the bank since the applicant didn't qualify for the govt. deal... because they didn't file their paperwork... which actually they did.

All of these programs that are de facto voluntary on the banks are defective.

If the banks wanted to help anyone they could do so unilaterally.

They don't for a reason.

[rsmith6621]

6. The Country Is In Ruins And Obama is on Vacation....

.....sleeping in a multi million dollar home in a community where some of the wealthiest people in America live.... I though he was a president for those with less.....


What the hell is wrong with going home to his house in CHITOWN????


Cant blame the banks...got to blame Obama after all his signature is on the bill that created this....Obama has to know what he is signing...RIGHT!!!!

[ieoeja]

7. I am one of the 52% for which it is working just fine. (nt)

[Lance_Boyle]

8. Poeple who weren't bright enough to buy a house in the first place

are not bright enough to take advantage of a program designed to help them keep that house. Shocking.

[Mojorabbit]

10. That is not entirely true

I have a sister who went thru just what the article is describing. The bank over and over "lost" their paperwork. They finally gave up.

[My Good Babushka]

12. Your response is gross. nt

[ljm2002]

14. If I had to deal with someone who is "not bright enough"...

...(by your standards) and someone who is an outright asshole, I'd take the "not bright enough person" any day of the week.

YMMV

[Bluebear]

16. Aren't you a repulsive piece of work.

[louis-t]

9. The largest banks are refusing to cooperate.

BoA, Chase, Wells Fargo. You'd think they would just say no thanks. Instead, they drag their feet and waste people's time by acting like they want to cooperate. 14 months? 14 months to get it done? BoA, 6 months to do a short sale? Sickening. Wells Fargo is notorius for losing documents. Multiple times. Sometimes the same document. The excuse I get? "It wasn't me, I just got this file on Monday." Every, stinking, time.

[TacticalPeek]

11. HAMP data for July

HAMP data for July

http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/08/hamp-data-for-july.html

...
If we look at the HAMP program stats (see page 3), the median front end DTI (debt to income) before modification was 44.8% - the same as last month. And the back end DTI was an astounding 79.7 (about the same as last month).

Think about that for a second: for the median borrower, about 80% of the borrower's income went to servicing debt. And the median is 63.5% after the modification.

These borrowers are still up to their eyeballs in debt after the modification.
...

Some people say this is not a question of Presidential leadership.

I say that some people might be full of shit.

[My Good Babushka]

13. We are one of the families that have lost their home.

Not because we "bought more house than we could afford" but because of a job loss. When we knew we were in trouble and tried to get a modification we were denied. We gave the bank our information and they said "we didn't have enough money." No kidding. That's why we called you in the first place.

[SoCalDem]

15. It's just simple math.. By the time you are in that much trouble,

tweaking it around the edges is not likely to "save you".. Millions of people were conned into believing that they could afford a home they could not.. If you did not put actual money-down, and only counted on ever-increasing "equity", and then borrowed against the "invisible equity", you actually GOT real money based on fake value, and got to live in a nice house for a few years....a house you should never have qualified for in the first place.

The real devils in this scheme are the ones who conned old people into taking out loans on "paid-for" houses.

Every person with an elderly parent who still lives "at home" in their paid up home, should be having some serious discussions with them or they may find Granny moving in with them because she got conned out of her house.

It's only ever really "yours", when that last payment has been made & there are no liens or loans against it.