Obama's New Foreclosure Plan Gets Mixed Reviews

  • Share
  • Read Later
Craig Tuttle / Corbis

Reaction is mixed to President Obama's plan to prevent up to 4 million homeowners whose mortgages are underwater from defaulting on their loans over the next three years.

Under the new plan, unveiled Friday, March 26, banks will be asked to lower the principal loan balance for certain homeowners whose mortgages exceed the value of their homes. The loans would be refinanced as mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), fully backed by the government. In the past, loan modifications under the $50 billion federal Home Modification Program (HAMP) involved primarily reducing interest rates or lengthening the term of the mortgage, and most did not entail a government guarantee.

Also, up to $14 billion of TARP funds will be used to provide subsidies to lenders and loan servicers who agree to write down at least 10% of a first mortgage; the combined value of first and second mortgages can be no greater than 115% of the current value of the home. The new monthly payment cannot exceed 31% of the homeowner's income. Investors in the loans would clearly take the up-front hit, but the risk of future default on the modified loan would be transferred to the government.

The FHA part of the program has tight restrictions: homeowners must be current on their mortgage payments, live in the home, have a FICO score of at least 500 and qualify for a standard FHA-backed loan once the principal is reduced. Those who get a modified loan must make full monthly payments for three years for the principal to be reduced permanently. The high standards for these loan modifications suggest that the Administration hopes to head off another wave of loan defaults and foreclosures by providing help earlier in the process.

The Administration also announced an initiative to help unemployed homeowners, in which their monthly mortgage payments would be reduced or eliminated for three to six months while they look for work.

The latest initiatives are aimed at slowing the steady stream of homes that are headed toward foreclosure. The number of households receiving foreclosure filings, which includes default notices, auction-sale letters and bank repossessions, was 2.8 million in 2009, up from 2.3 million in 2008, according to Rick Sharga, vice president of marketing for RealtyTrac. He expects filings to increase to 3 million this year.

Treasury Assistant Secretary Michael Barr says the principal-reduction program is voluntary, not mandatory, and that there's no guarantee homeowners will not default on the new refinanced loans. "We don't want to be overly optimistic about that," said Barr during a briefing on Friday. "Modifications are hard — they're done for people who are struggling with their mortgage, and so you expect a lot of people not to make it — and a lot of people won't make it." However, he says two-thirds of the people in the government's present loan-modification program are current on their payments.

Treasury officials emphasize that the program will not save every troubled homeowner. They say it targets 3 million to 4 million of the 12 million who are expected to wind up in foreclosure in the next three years.

Initial reactions to the plan are mixed. Bob Curran, managing director of Fitch Ratings, calls it a step in the right direction. He says principal reductions will likely be more effective in modifying loans than past efforts that involved only interest-rate cuts and extensions of loan terms. "The loan-modification effort has not been very successful to this point in time," he says. However, he believes that only a small fraction of troubled homeowners will qualify for the program. "It will probably help some additional portion of the public, but I'm not sure it's enough to make a difference [in the overall housing recovery]," says Curran.

Curran also worries about how this round of loan-principal reductions will play out among investors who buy mortgage securities and whether they may be reluctant to buy new mortgage loans if there's a chance the principal will wind up being reduced down the line. "The returns would have to rise to incorporate this risk," says Curran. "Either they'll have to be compensated or they won't participate."

Rick Sharga, vice president of marketing for RealtyTrac, is cautiously optimistic that the program will help slow foreclosures. "One of the things that's prevented more success on these [loan-modification] programs is, we've had a principal-balance problem, and this program, on the face, would seem to resolve that." He says it's long been believed that homeowners would be able to support mortgage if they were based on current market values. Right now, many can't refinance because their loans are worth more than their houses, he says.

Lawrence Yun, chief economist with the National Association of Realtors, believes the proposal only partially addresses the housing industry's problem. Although it may help reduce foreclosures, it does nothing to stimulate demand for homes. "Stabilizing housing involves two parts. First is to raise the demand so that it eats into inventory. Second is to reduce supply, which means lessening foreclosures. This plan addresses the second. I hope it works better than prior foreclosure-mitigation plans."

Alex Barron, founder and senior research analyst at Housing Research Center LLC, is more bearish. He says this latest program of foreclosure prevention is just another way to delay rather than solve the problem. "My head is spinning," says Barron. "They keep exacerbating the problem. All this government interference is simply prolonging the inevitable." Barron says the housing market needs to correct on its own at this stage — "and the sooner it's allowed to do so, the sooner we can get on to a real recovery."