Federal Mortgage Programs Won't Meet Stated Goals

Federal Mortgage Programs Won't Meet Stated Goals Speaking before Congress earlier this week, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told lawmakers that the federal government’s Home Affordable Modification Program will likely fall well short of its goals to aid millions in making their mortgages more affordable, according to a report from Reuters. The program will likely not be able to help the 3 or 4 million troubled homeowners through the end of 2012 as initially planned.

“[W]e won’t come close to initial estimates,” Geithner told the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, according to the report.

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He noted that in particular, the incentives the government offered to mortgage lenders in an effort to convince them to change the terms of their most troubled home loans were not strong enough to drive significant renegotiations, the report said.

Many have also criticized HAMP and other government mortgage assistance programs as being far too difficult for even extremely troubled homeowners to qualify for. This left many individuals who the programs were originally intended to help out in the cold, despite billions of taxpayer dollars being committed to the projects.

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