We Have More Time To Advocate On Your Behalf
President Barack Obama
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, February 13, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) — Several big banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, are expanding efforts to halt home foreclosures while the Obama administration develops a plan to help struggling homeowners.
The White House said President Obama would outline his plan to spend at least $50 billion to prevent foreclosures in a speech on Wednesday in Arizona, one of the states hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis.
“It’s not intended to be measured by one day’s market scorekeeping, but instead to ensure that the 10,000 Americans each day that have their homes foreclosed on — and the millions more that are barely getting by — are protected,” the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said Friday.
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner announced a revised effort to stabilize the financial system on Tuesday. It included outlines of a foreclosure relief effort.
Although lenders have bolstered their efforts to aid borrowers over the last year, their action has not kept up with the worst housing recession in decades.
More than 2.3 million homeowners faced foreclosure proceedings last year, an 81 percent increase from 2007, and industry analysts say that number could soar as high as 10 million in the coming years, depending on the severity of the recession.
JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and the Bank of America said Friday that they were halting foreclosures through March 6. And Citigroup said it would halt foreclosures until the Obama administration completed the details of the loan modification program or until March 12, whichever is earlier. Citigroup’s action expands on a similar effort that it started in November.
The banks’ pledges apply to owner-occupied homes, not those owned by investors.
Mr. Obama’s announcement is expected to include details about how the administration plans to prod the mortgage industry to do a better job of modifying the terms of home loans so borrowers can have lower monthly payments.
Howard Glaser, a mortgage industry consultant who served in the Clinton administration, said that if the payments of two million borrowers were lowered by $500 a month, it would cost the government and lenders $6 billion each year — assuming lenders match half the cost.
Unlike previous loan modification plans, borrowers would not have to be in default to qualify, according to people briefed on the plan.
Figuring out who would qualify would be a challenge, especially as foreclosures continue to soar. More than 274,000 American households received at least one foreclosure-related notice last month, according to RealtyTrac, a foreclosure listing service.
A version of this article appeared in print on February 14, 2009, on page B5 of the New York Times.
- Mortgage Loan Modification - 5 Things You MUST Know About The $75 Billion Housing Plan There is a lot of controversy in the news regarding the proposed $75 Billion Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan (HASP). Presently the banks are often unable to help reduce mortgage rates for homeowners that are current on their loans. The Obama's proposed plan is designed to alleviate the situation by......
- Explaining the Obama Loan Modification in Simple Terms By default, most people are optimists. We all like to think that if our government creates a policy in a time of a crisis we can all depend on it to fix the problem at hand. The Obama administration has moved very quickly to address the housing problems that we......
- Official FDIC Loan Modification Guidelines This guide provides an overview of the FDIC's program to assist bankers, servicers, and investors in this process. It outlines FDIC program terms at IndyMac Federal Bank, offers insight into the specific portfolio characteristics that drive modification modeling at that bank, and provides a framework for developing and implementing a......
- Officials Say Obama Administration Considers Moving 9/11 Trial [/caption] The White House is facing strong political opposition to plans to hold trials in New York for five key suspects in the September 11 World Trade Center attacks. New York's mayor Michael Bloomberg recently asked the Obama administration to hold the trial somewhere else. The self proclaimed mastermind of......
- Obama Plan - More help for California! Homeowners in California and in a handful of other states could be injected with some much needed help from the Obama Administration. Recently President Obama announced a $1.5B program to help stop the foreclosure bleeding in some of the hardest hit states in the nation. My initial thought when I......
- Mortgage rates vs modification rates What interest rate are you qualified for? Well, that depends on whether you are trying to refinance or get a loan modification. I've spoken to many borrowers that are pursuing a loan modification because they feel their interest rates are high. They also feel they should be approved for the......
Tags: 
