Really?

[Stuart C]

BTW, on a side note, whatever happened to ***? Nothing bad I hope.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/bu...e.html?_r=1&hp

Treasury Hails Milestone in Home Loan Modifications

By PETER S. GOODMAN
Published: October 8, 2009
Half a million troubled homeowners have had their loan payments lowered under an Obama administration relief plan, the Treasury announced on Thursday, claiming a significant milestone in the effort to spare families from foreclosure.
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Luke Sharrett/The New York Times
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner



Unaffordable mortgages are now being modified at a pace faster than homes are being sold in foreclosure proceedings, the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, said.
“That’s an important shift,” Mr. Geithner said in a telephone briefing with reporters. “Half a million families are participating in loan modifications that are substantially decreasing their housing costs.”
Mr. Geithner added that roughly 40 percent of the 1.2 million homeowners deemed eligible for loan modifications under the Making Home Affordable Program have received them.
Treasury portrayed the data as clear evidence that its program to prevent foreclosures has gained traction and is operating effectively after a discouraging beginning. The administration had previously set a goal of 500,000 modifications by the end of October, reaching that goal three weeks early.
But many homeowners continue to complain that seeking loan modifications can be frustrating and seemingly futile: Mortgage companies routinely lose documents and require them to resubmit their files repeatedly, while giving them incorrect fax numbers and leaving them on hold for hours only to receive contradictory instructions from customer service officers.
Some mortgage companies assert they cannot modify loans because they merely send out the monthly bills, while the mortgages are owned by investors. Yet industry insiders say many mortgage companies actually profit by delaying the process and keeping homeowners in long-term delinquency, extracting myriad fees along the way.
Even as it claimed a significant achievement, the administration acknowledged that much more needs to happen before its anti-foreclosure program may be considered a success.
“Unacceptably large numbers of families across the country are still at risk of losing homes they could otherwise afford to stay in,” Mr. Geithner said.
With the official unemployment rate at 9.8 percent in September and expected to reach double digits, joblessness is now sending previously sound households into delinquency. What began as a foreclosure crisis stemming from subprime mortgages — those extended to homeowners with tainted credit — has broadened into a national event whose pain is now hitting borrowers with previously solid credit.
During the briefing, administration officials urged Congress to pass pending health care reform legislation, asserting that unexpected medical bills were a major reason many homeowners fell into delinquency on their mortgages.
Treasury first announced its anti-foreclosure program in February before delivering details in March: mortgage companies would be paid $1,000 for each loan they modified, then $1,000 a year for up to three years. The plan was advanced with the promise that it would eventually spare up to four million households from foreclosure.
But by June, evidence was mounting that the program had become a bureaucratic nightmare. Thousands of homeowners recounted poor treatment and disorganization at the hands of their mortgage companies. By the end of June, only about 50,000 loans had been modified, according to a Treasury estimate.
In July, frustrated by the pace of the progress and irritated by legions of homeowner complaints, Treasury summoned major mortgage companies to Washington for what was subsequently described by officials as a dressing-down.
In the months since, mortgage companies have added and trained staff and improved their processes of fielding applications, according to the administration.
“We’ve put significant pressure on the servicers to ramp up production,” said the housing and urban development secretary, Shaun Donovan, in Thursday morning’s briefing.
Still, the administration acknowledged that problems and frustrations remained. Treasury and H.U.D. summoned mortgage industry officials to Washington again, for meetings this afternoon aimed at further accelerating the program, Mr. Donovan said.
“We are keeping that pressure on,” he said.

[OH-WAMU]

I wonder what kind of pressure HUD put on the mortgage serviciers?

[darlyj]

He MUST be referring to the number of "trial" mods...wonder how pretty their numbers would look if they threw in the number of actual permanent mods completed.

*Arm held high in the air* Save the watch! The boots are a lost cause! What a load of BS.

[ohhhdear]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

BTW, on a side note, whatever happened to ***? Nothing bad I hope.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/bu...e.html?_r=1&hp

Treasury Hails Milestone in Home Loan Modifications


...................
Mr. Geithner added that roughly 40 percent of the 1.2 million homeowners deemed eligible for loan modifications under the Making Home Affordable Program have received them.

Is that right, Mr. Geithner??? Are you sure??

[OH-WAMU]

NOW WE KNOW! ALL TRIAL MODS! I THINK CHASE IS LYING OR ELSE WE WOULD ALL BE ON TRIAL MODS!

Geithner says loan modifications accelerating
Thu Oct 8, 2009 2:44pm EDT


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than half a million troubled homeowners now are participating in an Obama administration program to lower their loan payments, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Thursday.


Treasury and the Department of Housing and Urban Development said that was a milestone for the anti-foreclosure program and put it three weeks ahead of schedule for hitting a November 1 target date of helping 500,000.

But the rates at which loan servicers participating in the Making Home Affordable program were giving trial loan modifications to eligible homeowners still varied widely, from 41 percent at Saxon Mortgage Services Inc. to zero at others.

Some big lenders like Wells Fargo Bank were modifying loans for 20 percent of those who were eligible and J.P. Morgan Chase Bank NA was giving 27 percent of those eligible a modified loan payment.


Geithner said about 40 percent of the more than one million households that were considered eligible for lower loan payments now have received them. Lower loan payments are substantially reducing families' mortgage costs "and therefore increasing -- in the way a typical tax cut can operate -- the amount of money they can keep to devote to other important things," Geithner said.


Geithner and Shaun Donovan, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, said they were meeting mortgage loan services later on Thursday to talk about how to keep up the loan modifications program. "We are keeping the pressure on," Donovan said, adding that the administration wants services to ramp up their efforts to make it easier for people to seek loan modifications.

There have been many complaints about servicers' performance, including that they frequently lose documents from applicants to the modification program, and that callers are left waiting seemingly endlessly on hold. The administration has issued regular reports on how mortgage servicers perform and is expected to release its latest one later on Thursday. Geithner said some three million families have been able to refinance their mortgages, taking advantage of lower interest rates.

"The broad signs you see in the housing market...are encouraging," Geithner said. "They're still early, and we're still living with some risk that housing is going to be a source of weakness for the broader economy."

(Reporting by Glenn Somerville; Editing by Diane Craft)

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Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosureof relevant interests.

[caldwellb02]

I'd like to know where those people are. We have 20,500 members and counting. Where are all the mods? If 20-27% are being modified successfully, then we should be seeing at least 4100 successful mods on this forum. Where are they getting this info and how can I jump onto THEIR reality because I would certainly love to be modified! I think the key is the definition of "those who were eligible." So if they say your hardship isn't a permanent situation, then you aren't among the eligible group. So who defines the eligibility? Is that all left up to the banks. I don't get it. I truely don't get how this can be so different from the reality we see.

[Marie T]

and how many of these are real? are they counting the trial mod that was sent to me that was $700 more and I am not able to do it? how many more homeowners received trial mods that were not acceptable but the lenders put them in the number?

[Jillian118]

What a crock...spin spin spin....how do they do it without getting dizzy

[Stuart C]

Something to watch for on Friday:

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration's effort to help homeowners avoid foreclosure may not achieve its goal of helping 3 million to 4 million borrowers and may simply delay mortgage defaults for many, a government watchdog group says.
The Congressional Oversight Panel, charged with making regular assessments of the $700 billion financial rescue fund enacted last year, said the Treasury Department should consider whether to improve the current $50 billion program or adopt new programs to meet an expected rise in foreclosures fed by increased unemployment.
The panel's report is scheduled to be made public Friday.....


Treasury spokeswoman Meg Reilly said Thursday that while the mortgage relief program is available to the jobless, "we continue to study further ways to help unemployed homeowners."
The oversight panel accepted the report by a vote of 3-2, with the committee's two Republican members voting against it....




Nearly all the borrowers who have signed up so far are in an initial three-month trial phase. They are supposed to be extended for five years if the homeowners make their payments on time and return the necessary documents.
"While reaching half a million trial modifications nearly a month ahead of schedule is an important milestone, we recognize that the next challenge is converting borrowers from trial to permanent modifications," Reilly said.


Watchdog Doubts Obama Mortgage Relief Plan - Political News - FOXNews.com

[nativelasvegan]

Secretary Donovan said "We've put significant pressure on servicers to ramp up their efforts." "We're holding them to higher performance standards."

Anyone else up for letting Donovan know that we too are going to hold them to higher performance standards? I will be letting Secretary Donovan know today how the bank needs some added pressure. Here is his email should any of you care to let him know how your progress is going.


Secretary_Donovan@hud.gov

[max717]

Foreclosures mark pace of enduring U.S. housing crisis | U.S. | Reuters
MIAMI (Reuters) - Every 13 seconds in America, there is another foreclosure filing.
That's the rhythm of a crisis that threatens to choke off hopes for a recovery in the U.S. housing market as it destroys hundreds of billions of dollars in property values a year.
There are more than 6,600 home foreclosure filings per day, according to the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonpartisan watchdog group based in Durham, North Carolina. With nearly two million already this year, the flood of foreclosures shows no sign of abating any time soon.
MIAMI (Reuters) - Every 13 seconds in America, there is another foreclosure filing.
That's the rhythm of a crisis that threatens to choke off hopes for a recovery in the U.S. housing market as it destroys hundreds of billions of dollars in property values a year.
There are more than 6,600 home foreclosure filings per day, according to the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonpartisan watchdog group based in Durham, North Carolina.