What We're Hearing

It’s alive – the Obama Administration’s $75 billion ‘Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan’ also known as 'HASP.’ Let’s do some math. According to figures compiled by National Mortgage News and the Quarterly Data Report, there are roughly 60 million outstanding residential loans in the U.S., 10% of which are in some stage of delinquency. That works out to 6 million loans. The White House says its plan will help 3 million to 4 million “at risk” consumers or 66% of those who could go into foreclosure. The magic bullet that will help these struggling homeowners is loan modifications. The idea is to lower mortgage payments to no more than 38% of a family’s monthly income. It all sounds promising on paper, but what if the job market continues to worsen and even more Americans become unemployed, causing loan delinquencies to rise once again? And who’s going to keep track of all these loan modifications and police both the servicer and mortgagor? Stay tuned…