It's been nearly three months since the Obama Administration rolled out "Making Home Affordable", a plan intended to help distressed homeowners. But, what's happening? It looks like the jury is still out. Amid all the hype, is the plan living up to its expectations? Thus far, only 55,000 homeowners have been helped, a far cry from the Administration's goal of seven to nine million.
Even more disturbing, the foreclosure crisis seems to be worsening:
• According to RealtyTrac, a company that compiles foreclosure data, reports that 342,000 households received at least one foreclosure-related notice last month. This is an increase of 32 percent, compared with notices issued last April. It is also the second consecutive month in which more than 300,000 households got a foreclosure filing.
• According to a report from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), completed foreclosure sales increased 900 percent between March and April this year.
• According to the Wall Street Journal; on April 15th, 2009, one of the nation’s largest mortgage servicers, GMAC, acknowledged that only 10 percent of their customers that are facing foreclosure actually qualify for Obama’s “Making Home Affordable” program.
While the Obama Administration should be commended for taking a proactive approach by promoting loan modification as a tool to prevent foreclosure, more needs to be done and the administration needs to be honest with the American people about who can realistically be helped with ‘Making Home Affordable’.
There does seem to be some hope. Good news came out yesterday. Citibank, Chase, WAMU and EMC announced they will no longer require homeowners to be late on their mortgages to qualify for loan modification.
I've also developed the only truly free online loan modification course. The course is seven lessons and covers all aspects of the loan modification process.
The program is not only good for distressed homeowners, but realtors and CPAs who want to learn more about loan modification. The only requirement to participate is the completion of a brief, one page application, at which point you'll be immediately provided with a username and password with access to the full loan modification program.
To register, visit Loan Modification for Free.
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