HAMP = Foreclosure
by ilene - April 27th, 2010 4:30 am
Yesterday’s article "Is 103 Months to Clear Housing Inventory Too Optimistic?" included an excerpt from the WSJ’s "Number of the Week: 103 Months to Clear Housing Inventory," suggesting there were at least 103 months of housing inventory yet to hit the market. Patrick Pulatie, CEO of Loan Fraud Investigations, wrote to me that he believed the 103 estimate was far too low.
One of Pat’s reasons was that "the HAMP modifications will have a failure rate of at least 75%. That is due to the Debt Ratios that the mods are approved at. In Feb, the mean ratio was 59.8%. In Mar, it was 62.7%, which to increase that much, most every Mar approval was far above the 62.7 number."
In this article, Pat discusses the HAMP loan modification program in more detail.
HAMP = Foreclosure
Courtesy of Patrick Pulatie (originally published at Implode-O-Meter Blog)
Over the last year, I have been watching the HAMP modification program with great interest. I have wanted to believe that the Federal Government would actually put into place a loan modification program that would help homeowners, though I knew that this was likely false hope. The results are now in, at least in my opinion.
HAMP is a fraud. Nothing else can be said otherwise. The Government has once again put into place a program that will not help homeowners. Instead, HAMP modifications will end up postponing homes foreclosures for a period of time for modified loans, but, most will end up losing the home in the end, except for a “very” lucky few who actually make it. I cannot believe that the Government expected anything other than the HAMP program would end up being a failure. To understand what to expect, we must look inside the numbers.
In March, the February results for HAMP were released. Key points of the update were:
* 1.3 million total trial modification offers.
* Almost 1.1 million trial modifications have begun since the program began.
* 72,000 new trial modifications started in February.
* More than 170,000 permanent modifications granted to date.
* 91,800 other permanent modifications offered and awaiting acceptance.
* 0.9% permanent modifications cancelled
* 8.8% total modifications cancelled, 88,663 total
If one looks at these numbers and compares the…
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HAMP to the Rescue
by ilene - March 31st, 2010 8:05 pm
HAMP to the Rescue
Courtesy of MIKE WHITNEY writing at CounterPunch
Last Friday, the Obama administration announced changes to its Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) The most significant change is "principal reduction". By reducing the balance on underwater loans, the administration hopes to lower the number of foreclosures which have soared to more than 300,000 per month. This looks like a plan that could work, since most foreclosures are the result of negative equity or unemployment. If the banks and other investors agree to the terms of the program (and it looks like they will) then more homeowners will be able to avoid foreclosure, prices will stabilize, and the recovery will gain momentum. There is one drawback, however, which is moral hazard writ large. The new program rewards the speculators who bet on dodgy investments and who’ll be able to exchange their garbage securitizations for government-guaranteed FHA loans.
In fact, it looks like that was the real purpose of the program from the very beginning. This is an excerpt from March 30, Bloomberg News:
"Subprime-mortgage securities are rising at an accelerating pace as the U.S. begins to encourage reductions to homeowners’ balances, which may lead to fewer foreclosures and a quicker end to the housing slump….Subprime-loan bonds rated AAA when created in the first half of 2006 climbed 3.2 percent last week to 49.1, the highest since January 2009, according to Markit Group Ltd.
“Senior-ranked bonds tied to borrowers with poor credit will mostly benefit after the Treasury Department said for the first time it would seek to cut the size of mortgages, reducing the likelihood that loan modifications will fail, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley and Barclays Plc. The revised plan also supports the housing market by helping avert more foreclosures, Amherst Securities Group LP analyst Laurie Goodman said." (Bloomberg)
So, it looks like Obama’s modification program has touched-off a gold rush in toxic paper. Subprime securitizations which had been worth next to nothing, are presently the hottest item on Wall Street. Main Street’s loss will, once again, mean windfall profits for Wall Street’s hedge fund managers and brokerage kingpins. It’s a subprime bonanza! A recent interview I had with a Wall Street veteran (anonymous) had this to say on the topic:
"It sounds like the investors in securitizations will be swapping underwater real estate for government-insured paper… I
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.
