Making Home Affordable Program – Government Omitted Information

The Government’s homeowner’s bail-out program “Making Home Affordable” reported yesterday that through October, 650,994 delinquent borrowers have received help.  This represents 20 percent of those potentially eligible, according to the Treasury Department. That is up from 487,081 through September. Most are in the states hardest hit by the housing crisis. About 134,609 of those who have had loans modified under the program — typically through an interest-rate reduction — are in California and 82,614 are in Florida.

Interestingly, the government omitted information on how many of the 650,000 borrowers in this program are keeping up with the payments on their trial modifications. Is this just an innocent omission, or something more?

To add a balanced view to the government report, look at the LPS report below:

Lender Processing Services, which is a huge mortgage data aggregate just put out the press release below:

LPS Mortgage Monitor for October 2009  – Current Mortgage Performance Observations – Based on data as of September 30, 2009

• Delinquency and foreclosure rates continue to hit new highs – 31 states have non-current (delinquency plus foreclosure) rates of 10% or more.
• Loan deterioration over the last six months has been widespread nationally.
• The percentage of loans 60+ days delinquent from current status as of prior year-end is the highest of the last four years and is increasingly dominated by higher credit scores.
• Deterioration ratios are above 300%, with three loans getting worse for every loan improving in the same. Six-month rates have trended upwards for the last two months and are expected to continue through year-end.
• Foreclosure volumes are near all-time highs while roll rates into foreclosure are near or below their historical averages. This disparity is due to the high and rising volume of seriously delinquent loans.
• Loans on payment plans increased dramatically in Q2 2009, due mostly to the Making Home Affordable trial periods.
• Newly initiated home retention plans exceeded new foreclosures in Q2 2009 based on data aggregated for the OCC-OTS Mortgage Metrics reports.
• Shadow foreclosure and REO inventories remain much higher than historical levels and growing.
• 2009 production GNMA loans improved from 2007 and 2008 levels; however default rates remain above pre-bubble 2004 levels.
• Production volumes remain strong relative to 2008 levels but with a much higher percentage of FHA/VA loans.

Jamul California real estate