I came across an article in The Street this morning (hat tip: National Mortgage Professional Magazine) that was an “edited transcript of [Treasury Department spokeswoman Andrea Risotto's] response to specific criticisms” concerning the home affordable modification program (HAMP).

I was hoping this article would provide some concrete explanations to such long-standing questions as “what is taking so long, what’s with the lack of success, why has the program changed so often and why are the results so much better for servicers outside of HAMP?” Unfortunately, Ms. Risotto’s responses didn’t reveal too much new or enlightening information that would help us get a better sense of what we can do to make this program better.

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With a new Making Home Affordable program comes a new acronym: HAUP, the Home Affordable Unemployment Program.

Joining the ranks of HAMP, HARP, HASP, HAFA and 2MP, HAUP – which will begin on July 01, 2010 – is designed to provide relief to unemployed homeowners. HAUP (referred to as “UP”), “offers eligible unemployed borrowers a forbearance plan to temporarily reduce or suspend their mortgage payments.”

Here are the details from MakingHomeAffordable.com:

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The latest issue of Servicing Management (SM) magazine brought a new video to our attention. PMI Mortgage Insurance Co. has released an educational video that’s designed to help struggling homeowners understand and navigate the Federal loan modification program.

The video is broken up into two parts: Read the rest of this entry »

An opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal today warned readers that Ginnie Mae and the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), because of their growing influence in the mortgage market, are quickly becoming a growing financial liability to American taxpayers:

Only last week, Ginnie announced that it issued a monthly record of $43 billion in mortgage-backed securities in June. Ginnie Mae President Joseph Murin sounded almost giddy as he cheered this “phenomenal growth.” Ginnie Mae’s mortgage exposure is expected to top $1 trillion by the end of next year—or far more than double the dollar amount of 2007. (See the nearby table.) Earlier this summer, Reuters quoted Anthony Medici of the Housing Department’s Inspector General’s office as saying, “Who would have predicted that Ginnie Mae and Fannie Mae would have swapped positions” in loan volume?

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The latest thorn in the side of President Obama’s loan modification program is that some participating borrowers could see their credit scores plummet:

Banks, including Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp., report the loan modifications to credit bureaus. The adjustments can lower credit scores because of the way the FICO formula, the most widely used by U.S. lenders, works.

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