The government is officially giving borrowers back home equity. Yep, somewhere between $35 and $50 billion worth. Of course we've all lost over $5 trillion, but who's counting? Lenders still aren't required to do it, but they're going to get an awful lot of taxpayer-funded incentives to do it.
I wanted to call this blog, "Hammering HAMP," but I knew before I wrote it that my editors would nix that. But what a show at the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform today, as members questioned one of the members of the TARP oversight panel and then got to blast Asst. Treasury Secretary Herb Allison (he's the former Fannie Mae exec who now watches over the Treasury's housing bailout).
The reason this program is so important is because something is in the works over at Treasury to do a progam like it. News of that may be coming later this week, according to sources.
I saw some analysts claim this is a seasonal effect, as sellers get ready for the Spring market, but the Realtors said it is a much bigger jump than usual, in fact the biggest they've seen in a few decades.
Fannie Mae took a big scissors to its forecast for residential investment (mortgage funding) this quarter. A month ago they thought the it would rise 2.8 percent in Q1, but now they're saying it could drop 17.2 percent. That's some change.
The qualification standards for HAMP are high…can't be an investor, can't be a second home, can't be a jumbo loan, and more. The good news is that these loans are in fact being modified, some of them actually getting principal write downs, unlike the bulk of HAMP mods.
Just when you think a government program might actually do some good… Here I am today reporting about the upcoming Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternative program from the Treasury Department that goes into effect April 5th. The program is designed to help troubled borrowers who don't qualify for loan modifications.
The good news is the pace of loan deterioration is slowing. The bad news is we are still seeing record high delinquencies, and new delinquencies are outpacing loss mitigation efforts.
Today the Treasury Department released its monthly Servicer Performance Report through February on the 75 billion dollar Home Affordable Modification Program. This is the report that shows how many loans are in the trial phase, how many have been converted to the permanent phase, and which banks are doing more and which are doing less.
The American Institute of Architects reports that, "functionality is now preferred to more and larger bathrooms within U.S. homes." Functionality. How banal.
