It’s fairly impossible to follow Administration math on the HAMP program, which is part of the TARP authorization. I’ve seen HAMP alternately described as a $75 billion, $50 billion, $45.6 billion and $29 billion program. And the White House has carved money out of HAMP for other housing programs like the Hardest Hit Fund. So [...]

If Pimco, the giant bond fund, actually believes this, they can sue to block the foreclosure fraud settlement. But of course, nobody has seen terms, which would be kind of crucial to that circumstance: The government’s deal with banks over their foreclosure practices after 16 months of investigations is cheap for the loan servicers while [...]

Because there’s no actual term sheet for the foreclosure fraud deal it’s virtually impossible to assess it, and every group who released a press statement calling it “a drop in the bucket” or a “down payment” or a “first step” should withdraw before the facts are known. But we should be talking about how the [...]

Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard professor, consumer advocate and candidate for US Senate in Masachusetts, said today that the Federal Housing Finance Agence (FHFA) must increase their actions on behalf of homeowners, including principal reductions, something that the agency has resisted to this point. Warren spoke in concert with officials in Massachusetts, from Rep. Barney Frank, [...]

As I mentioned in last night’s roundup, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman abruptly cancelled a conference call yesterday 10 minutes before it was to begin. The subject was supposed to be the foreclosure fraud settlement, and there was idle speculation that Schneiderman would announce that he would join the settlement. This would spur other [...]

JPMorgan Chase estimates that 500,000 new loan modifications will result from the Administration’s changes to the embattled HAMP program. I’m skeptical of this projection, but let’s hear it out: JPMorgan Chase [[JPM]] analysts said in a report Monday they expect 1.7 million additional borrowers could qualify for the program under the more lenient DTI requirements [...]

I didn’t think much of the HAMP changes announced last Friday, but my pessimism mainly came from the fact that HAMP itself is an irreparably damaged program that nobody wants to use. There’s also the point that the GSEs are generally uninterested in a principal reduction program, and that has not changed. Ed DeMarco’s statement [...]

Hey, remember HAMP? That’s the program that was supposed to help four million borrowers lower their mortgage payments and avoid foreclosure? The one that promised $50 billion for that purpose? The one that’s actually provided temporary relief for around 900,000 borrowers, used about 6% of the money earmarked, and also the one that’s been used [...]

Ezra Klein writes this morning that mass refinancing is the “biggest thing” President Obama can do to aid the economy without the input of Congress. That’s not actually true, even in the context of housing. He could direct Treasury to use the unused $42 billion of HAMP money to provide mass principal write-downs. He could [...]

A few days ago, I tweeted about an interview Felix Salmon did last year with Michael Barr, who at that time still worked at the Treasury Department, on the foreclosure issue. In that interview, Barr touted the inter-agency review being done on the entire mortgage market, and he vowed that “we’re holding the banks accountable [...]

The Treasury Department apparently has a simple rule. You can abuse a Treasury program and violate the program guidelines for two years. But if you go into that third still violating, well, they’re going to have to ask you to comply. The Treasury Department will withhold Home Affordable Modification Program payments from JPMorgan Chase and [...]