Since its inception, HAMP has helped only half a million homeowners. That is only 1/6 of the three to four million distressed homeowners that the program promised to keep out of foreclosure when it was being created. Despite its under-performance, Administration officials have advised President Obama that HAMP should be retained. Obama for his part [...]
Bank of America researchers recently completed a survey of homeowners who are 60 days or more delinquent in paying their mortgages and concluded that only 14% of these homeowners would be eligible for a HAMP loan modification under the current rules.
One of the sharpest critics of the Administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) in recent weeks has been the TARP Inspector General, Neil Barofsky. Now Barofsky has announced his resignation from TARP this month.
The House Financial Services Committee has taken up the investigation of whether to keep or cut four programs that are the cornerstones of the Administration’s foreclosure-fighting programs. Specifically, the Insurance, Housing and Community Opportunity Subcommittee has been holding hearings this past week on HAMP, HUD’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program, the FHA Refinance program, and the Emergency Mortgage Relief Fund.
Posted on March 8, 2011 in
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Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Alabama), chair of the House Financial Services Committee has announced that there will be a hearing on four bills that would eliminate the major Obama Administration foreclosure housing programs: Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), the HUD Neighborhood Stabilization Program, the FHA ShortRefi Program, and the Emergency Homeowner Relief Program passed under the Dodd-Frank Act. Bachus labeled all of these programs ineffective and in many ways harmful to the very people they were designed to help.
The Treasury Department now estimates that 1.4 million homeowners are still eligible for a HAMP modification. This is a 57% reduction from the original 2009 estimate of around 3.3 million homeowners who could qualify.
Three Republican congressmen have filed a bill proposing the end to the government’s controversial Home Affordable Modification Program, Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Patrick T. McHenry (R- North Carolina), and Darrell Issa (R-California).
The Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives program has received its share of criticism. In December the California Association of Realtors (CAR) voiced its concerns about the program to the Treasury Department. CAR members complained that Lenders very frequently fail to meet the required deadlines and other rules for responding to Short Sale offers. The program mandated payments are often too small to entice many lenders to settle on a Short Sale offer.
The HOPE NOW alliance of major lenders just celebrated its fourth year of helping homeowners to modify their loans. A total of 1.65 million homeowners have received loan modifications through November 2010.
The December HAMP Scorecard shows that the major loan servicers have failed to act on 266,136 delinquent mortgages. These loan modifications have either been canceled out of trials or failed to qualify for a modification as of October. The backlog has increased 22% since the first report on failed trials and loan modification requests in July. As of October 1.5 million loans have either failed to go past trial or never qualified in the first place.
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