Obama Foreclosure-Prevention Plan Lagging, New Data Shows

Obama Foreclosure-Prevention Plan Lagging, New Data Shows

Only about a third of the homeowners who have successfully completed the trial period of the Obama administration's mortgage modification program have been offered permanent relief, according to new federal data obtained by the Huffington Post.

The conversion rate -- about 33 percent -- is woefully short of what the Treasury Department had forecast. Treasury thought the rate would be "ranging up to 75 percent," Herbert M. Allison Jr., assistant secretary for financial stability, told the Congressional Oversight Panel in October.

The other two-thirds of homeowners who have gone through the trial program and made the necessary payments remain in limbo. Some of those homeowners -- more than 350,000 of them -- will ultimately lose out on the kind of relief the administration has repeatedly promised: averting foreclosure through lower monthly payments.

"I remain very concerned about the relatively small number of conversions from trial to permanent modifications for homeowners," said Richard H. Neiman, New York's superintendent of banks and a member of the COP, in an email to HuffPost. "Hundreds of thousands of homeowners are left in limbo by [mortgage] servicers and [are] once again at risk of foreclosure."

Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican on the House Oversight Committee who had a memorable exchange last month with one of Treasury's top housing officials, was more blunt: "It's not surprising these numbers are lower than expected," he said in an email. "This program has been a waste of taxpayer dollars and harmful to the very families it was supposed to help."

The Home Affordable Modification Program, a year-old initiative which promised to help up to four million homeowners avoid foreclosure through lower monthly payments, is the administration's signature effort to help struggling borrowers stay in their homes. Part of Obama's $75 billion Making Home Affordable program, HAMP is designed to help homeowners by paying everyone in the mortgage chain, from the borrower to the mortgage bond investor.

But this incentive-based program, criticized by many consumer advocates and Wall Street housing analysts as inadequate and ineffective, has had a rocky time delivering on its promise.