Obama Foreclosure-Relief Plan May Guarantee Rewritten Loans

Alison Vekshin
Bloomberg
Tuesday, Feb 3, 2009

The Obama administration is considering government guarantees for home loans modified by their servicers, seeking to stem the record surge of foreclosures that’s hammering U.S. property values.

The proposal, which may also have the taxpayer share in the cost of reducing mortgage payments, is aimed at shielding lenders from default after they loosen loan terms for struggling borrowers. Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan, who regulates national banks, said yesterday that “working out the details of it is still something that’s ongoing.”

“We need to help more people stay in their homes” through helping mortgage lenders make more loan modifications, James Lockhart, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television yesterday. “I’m pleased that the new administration is starting to work on that area.”

(Article continues below)

President Barack Obama’s team is preparing the biggest effort yet to arrest foreclosures, part of a three-pronged attack on the financial crisis that also aims at restarting business and consumer lending and overhauling regulation. As banks dump on the market the properties acquired through borrower defaults, they are contributing to the biggest slide in property values since the Great Depression.

Bailout Plan

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

Top officials continued their series of meetings yesterday as they examine options for the next phase of the government’s financial-industry bailout. The biggest challenge is finding a way to value banks’ toxic assets so that the government can buy or insure them while providing some limit to taxpayer losses, Dugan said. An announcement on the strategy may come early next week, an administration aide said.

Full article here

Comment Rules

Comments are closed.