The Obama foreclosure prevention plan is coming under fire this week from members of Congress. This heralded loan modification program slated to aid 3 million to 4 million homeowners in an effort to extend loan relief while helping homeowners divert foreclosure. Unfortunately this government loan modification program have fallen far short of that goal, and now a handful of Republican Congressman are reportedly ready to introduce legislation to eliminate it.  It should be noted the Bush and Obama administration have made serious attempts to stem the foreclosure crisis with numerous mortgage relief initiatives.

TARP Watchdog Says Loan Modification Plan Is Failing

Scores of homeowners aren’t getting help they qualify for, says Neil Barofsky, who is stepping down. The HAMP loan modification program was designed to lower interest rates and mortgage payments for struggling homeowners, and it has worked for around 600,000 people across the country. But critics say it should be reaching a lot more people. As lenders continue to tighten refinance loan guidelines, more and more homeowners will be in need of mortgage relief.

There are “3.3 million families who might have been reached by this program if only it had been better designed, better managed and better executed by the Treasury department,” said Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general installed to oversee the government’s bank bailout efforts. Speaking at a House hearing Wednesday, Barofsky responded to questions from North Carolina Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry, who recently introduced the legislation that would end the program. [There are] 3.3 million families who might have been reached by this program if only it had been better designed, better managed and better executed by the Treasury department.

A recent Nation Public Radio article revealed some interesting insight. TARP special inspector general, gave his thoughts regarding the Home Affordable Modification Program. Neil Barofsky has been critical of the Treasury department for not doing more to make the program work better and reach more people, and for not offering a current estimate of how many homeowners the program will actually reach. “It is somewhat shameful that at this point — here we are in March 2011 — and the Treasury department will in one breath say that, ‘Well, we know the number is not going to be anywhere close to what we originally said it would be,’ ” Barofsky said, “and then in the second breath refuse — I mean, this is such a basic failure in transparency, to refuse to tell you what their expectation is as to the total number that are going to receive permanent modifications. It evades accountability, and it’s trying to cover up a program that is clearly a failure.”

The Treasury department and Barofsky both agree that the banks and mortgage service companies have not been doing a good job.  Barofsky said. “But Treasury has done nothing to punish or penalize these loan servicers.” It would cause a huge amount of damage to a very fragile housing market and leave hundreds and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Americans without the chance to take advantage of a loan modification programs that enable homeowners to keep their homes.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said it would “cause a huge amount of damage to a very fragile housing market and leave hundreds and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Americans without the chance to take advantage of a mortgage modification that would allow them to stay in a home they can afford.”

According to NPR, Barofsky was critical, but did not of call for the Home Affordable Modification Program to be eliminated. Instead, he has long called for the Treasury to fix the program so it will help more people.

Borrowers across the nation continue to fall behind on their home loan payments. Many have contacted their mortgage lenders in an effort to renegotiate mortgage rates.  Many borrowers have been offered loan modification agreements and forbearances. Clearly the process of modifying their mortgage has made most homeowners become weary.

What else could you call it when almost 1 in 7 of South and Central Floridians who jumped into the Obama administration’s Making Home Affordable Program in January in hopes of getting a loan modification had dropped out by May?  The borrowers who have dropped out have joined an exodus of more than 215,000 borrowers nationwide in the past five months. They went through the trouble of applying, only to leave with nothing to show for it.

The answer, according to representatives of Chase and Wells Fargo/Wachovia among the largest banks operating in Florida is: Those borrowers did not meet the loan modification qualifications. Many of the mortgage relief prospects were not able to send in the documentation or their loan modification application was not completed correctly.

Using the May report from the Treasury Department, it’s clear that Miami-Fort Lauderdale and Orlando-Kissimmee are the largest metro markets in the nation for loan modifications. The two regions account for 6.8% of all Making Home Affordable loans nationwide, topping Los Angeles 6.4% and New York 6.1%.  Here, even those borrowers who do get a loan modification say the process is too vexing. Even if they comply with all the lender’s rules, borrowers say they get the runaround and often, contradictory answers from one day to the next.  Read the original article online Thousands giving up on home loan modification hopes.

The latest Home Affordable Modification Program statistics were announced Monday in a report used to measure the success of federal loan modification programs. The HAMP report indicated that slightly more than 10% of eligible borrowers received a loan modification that became permanent. Yet only one in three homeowners who started in the trial program has been kicked out.  The number of homeowners who have received a permanent federal loan modification rose to 340,459 in May from 295,348 reported in April.  That’s about 11% of 3.2 million HAMP eligible loans.  At the same time, the number of trial loan modification plans continued to fall as borrowers must now provide proof of income prior to any new payment plan. Active trial modifications fell to 467,672 from 637,353 in April. And borrowers who received a mortgage modification under the old rules are now required to prove their income before getting a permanent modification.  An additional 150,000 borrowers who could not prove their income or keep up with the new payments had their modifications canceled in May, bringing the total number of cancellations to 429,696. That’s about 35% of the 1.24 million trial modifications started.

President Obama made more mortgage news as he announced further expansion of the federal loan modification program, Home Affordable Modification Program also known as HAMP.  Many Washington insiders are questioning the rumored bailouts to mortgage lenders and banks contained in the fine print of the HAMP program.

According to the Wall Street Journal, several of the largest mortgage lenders, including some that have already received huge bailouts, carry hundreds of billions worth of home equity loans on their books. As home prices have nationally declined by almost 30%, these second mortgage liens are worthless in the case of a foreclosure. Second mortgage loans are usually wiped out completely during a foreclosure if the price has decreased more than 20%.

Yet the Obama solution is now to pay off 6 cents on the dollar for those junior liens, also known as second mortgages. While 6 cents doesn’t sound like a lot, it is a whole lot more than zero, which is what the banks would receive otherwise. Given that the largest mortgage lenders are carrying over $500 billion in second mortgages that may need to be written down, we are talking about tens of billions of taxpayer dollars again being funneled to the very banks behind the subprime mortgage crisis.  If that bailout isn’t enough, the new equity loan plan increases payments to home loan lenders to not take over homes, all at the expense of the taxpayer.  Many critics believe that Obama continues these mortgage bailouts rather than correcting the financing problems in the housing market.