Home Affordability Modification Program failing horribly

HAMP news not a surprise

The $75 billion Home Affordability Modification Program designed by the Obama Administration to help struggling homeowners by lowering borrowers’ monthly payments with mortgage rate reductions and extended loan terms. HAMP originally promised to help four to five million homeowners.

HAMP was extended through June 2011 although it was originally set to end in June 2010 and as of February 2010 (one year after the program’s launch), only 220,000 homeowners had received help through HAMP.

Why HAMP is a failure

You think 220,000 homeowners getting help is a victory? Barely an average of 18,000 homeowners catching a break each month? It would be if over 750,000 people had applied, with 530,000 of those in limbo or rejected. It would be a victory if the Administration hadn’t projected four to five million homeowners that would be saved. Foreclosures continue to rise as do bankruptcy filings.

This week, it was announced that a whopping 228,000 homeowners have been helped. That means that since the last FHFA announcement in February, only 6,000 homeowners have been helped. This shows a counterproductive slowdown in applicants being approved for assistance as 18,000 per month were getting help and now under 6,000 per month are seeing help.

What the media isn’t considering:

There is a lot of media coverage of this topic today as all sides of the aisle are disillusioned with HAMP, but no one is asking if the 12 month extension has caused slow down in the system? Is there no longer a rush to help struggling homeowners, or has the program internally been accepted as a failed program? Regardless, HAMP has been a failure and is getting worse.