A small step, but one that it is important and hopefully will be a trend in the Making Home Affordable Program process.

Here in my Macomb County MI area we have been in the throes of the foreclosure / unemployment / plummeting home values for several years.  

During all of this chaos I've spoken with many people who have tried to have their mortgages modified with
the Making Home Affordable program.   They've all shared the same scenarios & frustration:   Repeatedly
faxing and / or sending requested documents, phone calls to follow up weekly and in some cases daily,
mortgages being sold to another lender while in the midst of the process & having to start all over again.

Most of the people that I know of who have tried to have their mortgages permanently modified are now in
their 9th month to one year of "send it again, we didn't get it" mess.   Only a couple of them have been put
into the "trial program" of making the new modified payments for a 90 day trial period before they are
supposed to receive the permanent modification paperwork.  (I know of 2 people who are in the trial program, completed the 90 days of payments, and still haven't received permanent modification.)

Yesterday though I received a phone call from someone who said:"It's here!  The permanent modification  document!"   (This was after almost one year of haggling, begging and the loan being sold to another lender and starting all over again.)

Of course I asked what they thought was the key to getting the final documents.  The answer?  Getting angry. Refusing to take "no" during one lengthy phone call and consistently going up the chain of command to the new mortgage holder.  Doing this finally put them in touch with the Fannie Mae Foreclosure Prevention Specialist who actually provided this person with their own contact information for follow up calls and email. 

Today I am going to call or email the other people that I have spoken to about their frustration with this process to hopefully give them a bit of momentum to keep going forward and to see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

One small step, but an important one, and one that I hope we will hear much more about in the coming months as  these "trial periods" progress.