The federal government’s beleaguered Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) fell to impressive new lows in August after a summer of progress with only 33,000 homeowners receiving a permanent loan modification that month. That is 33 percent lower than in September[1].
While those who did manage to get their loans converted were able to reduce their loan payments down to about a third of their monthly incomes, cancellations are still rampant due to insufficient documentation, missed trial payments of plain old ineligibility to begin with, since many HAMP trial loans are made to people whose primary housing expense (their mortgage payment) is already less than 31 percent of their household income.
With the release of the numbers came also the presidential housing scorecard, in which the president informed us that things are moving along in the right direction and stabilizing just as planned[2]. When a program is tanking like this one – all according to plan, apparently – it is enough to make you wonder just exactly what the details of that plan might be.
Thank you for reading the Bryan Ellis Real Estate Letter! Your comments and questions are welcomed below.
[1] http://www.dsnews.com/articles/permanent-hamp-mod-conversions-down-27-2010-09-22
[2] http://nationalmortgageprofessional.com/news20556/obama-administrations-housing-scorecard-shows-signs-market-stabilization
