What went wrong with foreclosure aid programs?

[mfcorey1]

snip

Almost 1 million modifications

Administration officials say the programs' statistics alone don't fully reflect what's been accomplished. "You have to look at the ripple effect," Donovan says.

HAMP, which most often lowers mortgage payments through interest rate reductions, is approaching 1 million permanent loan modifications.

That is "not a negligible sum," Parrott says.

HAMP also "significantly changed the market," says Michael Barr, former assistant secretary at Treasury who worked on mortgage issues while in the Obama administration.

Before HAMP, mortgage servicers had no standard approach to modify loans. HAMP created one and streamlined the process, says Barr, who now teaches at the University of Michigan Law School.

Since HAMP's launch, lenders have independently offered more than 2.5 million loan modifications outside of HAMP, staving off foreclosures for many.

"The overall impact of the (HAMP) program has gone unnoticed," says Teri Schrettenbrunner, senior vice president of communications for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/story/2011-12-11/foreclosure-aid-program-what-went-wrong/51815400/1

[meow2u3]

1. The mortgage scammers were trying to run out the clock and lawyering up

for the sole purpose of weaseling out of modifying mortgages for homeowners. This lame excuse that mortgage servicers didn't have the proper paperwork, then turning around and blame the government, doesn't fly with me.

Even some judges aren't buying banks' excuses for denying mortgage modifications to homeowner/borrowers. Just ask the hero judge in Georgia who slapped down US Bank for taking taxpayer money and then trying to deny a mortgage modification to a homeowner who rightly deserved one.

[Demeter]

2. You see, actual resources would have to go to actual little people

This is an Oligarchy-Kleptocracy! We Can't Have That! Taking from the 1% and giving to the 99?