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 [...]

So the President delivered his remarks on this collection of housing policy announcements today, or should I say stimulus policy. As expected, it included this mass refi proposal, along with the announcement of the beginning of GSE sales of foreclosed properties to investors for them to covert into rentals. There was also this other piece [...]

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 [...]

Per the AP, the dollar figures in the proposed foreclosure fraud settlement break down like this: $17 billion would go toward reducing the principal that struggling homeowners owe on their mortgages. $5 billion would be placed in a reserve account for various state and federal programs; a portion of that money would cover the $1,800 [...]

Chatter increased over the weekend on a long-awaited foreclosure fraud deal between top banks and state and federal regulators, led by the Justice Department and HUD. Yves Smith provides additional details today, including a Constitutional issue over servicers providing modifications on investor-owned mortgages without their consent, a violation of the takings clause of the 5th [...]

The people who at least have a line into the national conversation inform me that this potential foreclosure fraud settlement is more than a drill. I’m hearing what Yves Smith is hearing. The meeting next Monday will attempt to bully Democratic AGs to back up their President in an election year. As Marcy Wheeler writes, [...]

I brought up one of my chief problems with the possible foreclosure fraud settlement, the fact that AGs have already tried a settlement that mandated banks to deliver loan modifications to borrowers, and they flat-out didn’t do it. But Sen. Sherrod Brown offers up another problem. It turns out that, under the settlement, the banks [...]

Everything you heard from Shaun Donovan yesterday about an “imminent” foreclosure fraud settlement is predicated on the idea that Democratic Attorneys General, of which between 1/3 and 1/2 have pursued or are supporting their own investigations, will sign onto the deal in the end. To help that along, Donovan, along with the short-timer at DoJ [...]

Shaun Donovan, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, made some news today at the US Conference of Mayors, by saying that a foreclosure fraud settlement was imminent and that it would include principal write-downs for up to one million borrowers. About one million American homeowners would get writedowns in the size of their mortgages [...]

So this is kind of funny: the White House is telling its allies that they will “take a more aggressive role” to protect homeowners this year. First off, we have had a crisis in housing and foreclosures every year of the Obama Administration. By stating that they will be more aggressive this year, the White [...]