Why Obama's Housing Rescue Hasn't Prevented Record Foreclosures

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By Luke Mullins Luke Mullins – 1 hr 38 mins ago

After taking withering criticism for the Department-of-Motor-Vehicles pace of its initial efforts to keep struggling borrowers out of foreclosure, the Obama administration proudly announced last week that it had hit its goal of 500,000 trial loan modifications almost a month ahead of schedule. But with the foreclosure rate hitting a new record in the third quarter, the government's ability to put a meaningful dent in the tally of housing-crisis victims faces renewed skepticism.

Foreclosure filings were reported on 937,840 homes in the three-month period, a 23 percent jump from a year earlier, according to a report real estate firm RealtyTrac released Thursday. Home foreclosures in September, meanwhile, decreased 4 percent from August but remained 29 percent higher than a year earlier. "REO activity increased from the previous quarter in all but two states and the District of Columbia, indicating that lenders may be starting to work through some of the pent-up foreclosure inventory caused by legislative delays, loan modification efforts, and high volumes of distressed properties," RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio said in a press release. Here's a look at why home foreclosures continue to break records even in the face of the Obama administration's expansive efforts to prevent them.

1. Initial foreclosure wave: Borrowers who overleveraged themselves--through exotic mortgage products like subprime or adjustable-rate home loans--played a central role in the foreclosure crisis when it first picked up steam. But as the housing crisis rumbles forward, lenders have witnessed a significant shift in the types of mortgages going delinquent. For example, the Mortgage Bankers Association's most recent National Delinquency survey, released in late August, found that although "the rate of new foreclosures started was essentially unchanged from last quarter's record high, there was a major drop in foreclosures on subprime ARM loans. The drop, however, was offset by increases in the foreclosure rates on the other types of loans, with prime fixed-rate loans having the biggest increase."

2. Current foreclosure crisis: Mounting mortgage delinquencies for borrowers with good credit is a key indication that the labor market--rather than resetting loans--is the most significant force behind the foreclosure crisis we see today. "Keep in mind that most of the foreclosures we saw a year ago [occurred] when the unemployment rate was 5 percent, so really the first wave of foreclosures were driven by subprime loans [and] resetting loans," says Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance. Today, however, a national unemployment rate of nearly 10 percent is triggering "a whole new wave" of homeowners going into foreclosures on account of job losses, Cecala says.

3. Fighting the last war: The Obama administration announced in mid-February a sweeping effort to stabilize the housing market. A central plank was a $75 billion initiative to reduce monthly mortgage payments for as many as 4 million struggling homeowners through so-called mortgage modifications. But in order to obtain a mortgage modification, borrowers need an income stream, Cecala says. In a report released October 9, the congressional oversight panel monitoring the rescue suggested that the administration might be fighting the last war. "[The administration's mortgage modification program] was not designed to address foreclosures caused by unemployment, which now appears to be a central cause of nonpayment," the panel said in its report. "The foreclosure crisis has moved beyond subprime mortgages and into the prime mortgage market. It increasingly appears that [the program] is targeted at the housing crisis as it existed six months ago, rather than as it exists right now." In addition, foreclosure starts are occurring at more than twice the rate that trial modifications are extended, and there is no guarantee that homeowners won't simply redefault on their restructured mortgage, the panel said in the report.

4. Modified impact: Still, the administration's efforts are not without impact. "Originally, the expectations were that loan modifications were going to stop foreclosures and reduce the rate, and we would see immediate results. That was obviously wishful thinking," Cecala says. "Now we are of the belief that they are going to do absolutely nothing. The truth is somewhere in between." Celia Chen, the director of housing economics at Moody's Economy.com, expects that the program will modify around 1.5 million mortgages over the next three years. "That's a substantial number," she says. However, "even with those modifications, we expect that the number of foreclosure sales that will occur for this year will be around 1.9 million, and next year will just be a tad shy of that." (Chen is projecting roughly 1.8 million foreclosure sales in 2010.)

5. Predicting the peak: Cecala says the unemployment rate will have to peak before we can expect to see a meaningful and sustainable reduction in the number of home foreclosures. In its 2010 economic forecast, the MBA projected that the unemployment rate would peak at 10.2 percent in the second quarter of next year. For that reason, Cecala expects home foreclosures to let up sometime in the middle of 2010. "We certainly have enough bad loans in the system . . . to keep foreclosures at record levels going through the first half of next year," he says. "So maybe a year from now we will see some letup, but we are not sure."


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Why Do Home Foreclosures Keep Rising? 6 Things You Need to Know
By Luke Mullins
Posted: July 16, 2009

Five months after the Obama administration unveiled a sweeping initiative designed to reach 9 million struggling homeowners, home foreclosures continue to rise at an alarming rate. Foreclosure filings were reported on more than 1.5 million properties in the first six months of the year, a 15 percent increase over the same period of last year, according to RealtyTrac. All told, 1 in 84 American homes—or 1.19 percent—received a foreclosure filing during the period. "We talk about green shoots or about things getting worse at a slower rate, but this is one thing that is getting worse month by month," says Patrick Newport, an economist for IHS Global Insight.

Here are six things you need to know about the rise in home foreclosures:

1. Unemployment: The erosion of the labor market—the unemployment rate recently hit 9.5 percent—is the key factor in the rise of home foreclosures, says Celia Chen, an economist at Moody's Economy.com. "Employers continue to shed jobs, and that makes it difficult for even people with good credit who were doing fine to keep up with their mortgage payment," Chen says. For example, a recent report issued by federal bank regulators found that home loans to borrowers with solid credit histories were going bad at a rapid clip. "Prime loans, which represented two thirds of all mortgages in the portfolio, experienced the highest percentage increase in serious delinquencies, climbing by more than 20 percent from the prior quarter to 2.9 percent of prime mortgages," the report stated.

2. Plunging home values: Nearly three years after its peak, the painful decline in home prices continues. Although the pace of decline moderated slightly from the previous month, home prices in 20 major metro areas dropped 18.1 percent in April from a year earlier. Falling home values have dragged more than 20 percent of American homeowners "underwater"—meaning they owe more on their mortgages than the property is worth—as of the first quarter. By sucking equity out of homes, the price declines have also evaporated much of a homeowner's financial incentive for paying their mortgage bill, Chen says. "When somebody doesn't have equity in their house and they are struggling to pay their mortgage, the likelihood of a foreclosure is much higher," she says. In addition, home owners with less equity in their homes will have a more difficult time refinancing
their mortgage.

3. End of f oreclosure moratoriums: The end of certain foreclosure moratoriums—including those of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were lifted in late March—also contributed to the rise in foreclosures during the period, Chen says. As these efforts unwound, lenders and servicers put additional properties into their foreclosure pipelines, she says.

4. Is Obama's plan working? : A key component of Obama's housing rescue plan is an effort to restructure—or modify—as many as 4 million troubled loans. So far, about 325,000 modification offers have been made through the program, according to Bloomberg news. Chen says the program is having an impact for certain individual borrowers, but the efforts—at least so far—have not put much of a dent into the national foreclosure epidemic. "The program is making progress. It's just that there are a large number of distressed borrowers out there," she says. "It's so hard to process all of those loans, and then second of all, not all of those borrowers will qualify for the program." Borrowers have complained of long delays and bureaucratic hurdles in their efforts to modify their mortgages.

Though the administration's effort includes incentive payments
to convince servicers to modify the loans, Newport says some may find it less costly to foreclose on the property. "My understanding is that there is going to be some pressure from the administration to get banks to start renegotiating more loans," he says. "But if [modification is] not in [the servicer's] self-interest, I don't think that they are going to do much."

5. Mounting political pressure: Mortgage services appear to be facing mounting pressure from Washington to redouble their efforts. "We believe there is a general need for servicers to devote substantially more resources to this program for it to fully succeed and achieve the objectives we all share," Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and HUD chief Shaun Donovan said in a recent letter to 25 mortgage servicing firms. In a hearing today, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut, expressed his frustration more directly. "Why am I still reading about lost files, understaffed and undertrained servicers, and hours spent on hold on the phone?" Dodd said in a prepared opening statement. "Why are servicers and lenders refusing to accept principal reduction so that homeowners can start building equity and get the housing market moving again?"

6. Foreclosure outlook: Despite this pressure, Newport expects foreclosure rates to creep higher for the next year or so. "It's going to keep on getting worse until the unemployment rate peaks, which we think will happen in about the middle of next year," he says. For her part, Chen argues that a successful mortgage rescue program could expedite a housing recovery. "The hope is that we will be able to push through enough mortgage modifications to prevent home prices from falling too much more," she said.


http://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/the-home-front/2009/07/16/why-do-home-foreclosures-keep-rising-6-things-you-need-to-know

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Obama's Housing Rescue Expands: 6 Things to Know
By Luke Mullins
Posted: July 2, 2009

In a move that suggests its initial rescue plan was insufficient, the Obama administration yesterday announced plans to widen the eligibility parameters of a key housing initiative. The change would allow borrowers with mortgages valued at 125 percent of their home's worth to refinance into more affordable loans. Previously, only borrowers with so-called loan-to-value ratios of 105 percent or less could do so. The mortgage refinancing program is part of the president's two-pronged plan to pull the nation out of its worst housing slump since the Great Depression. Coupled with efforts to modify troubled mortgages, the government believes its Making Home Affordable initiative can reach up to 9 million American homeowners. "The president's Making Home Affordable plan is already helping far more families than any previous foreclosure initiative, and with today's announcement we will extend its reach still further," Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said.

Here are six things you need to know about the expanded rescue:

1. Fannie/Freddie only: Despite the higher loan-to-value ceiling, the original framework of the program remains in tact. For example, only borrowers with loans owned or guaranteed by government-controlled housing finance giants Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac can participate. At the same time, borrowers need to be current on their mortgage to qualify.

2. Falling prices, less equity: The expansion of the qualification parameters comes as the real estate market continues to erode. Home prices in 20 major metropolitan areas fell by more than 18 percent in April from a year earlier, according the Case-Shiller home price index. Among other things, sliding home prices suck equity out of homes. Because of plunging values, more than a fifth of American homeowners were considered "underwater"—meaning they owe more on their mortgages than the property is worth—in the first quarter of this year, according to Zillow. This evaporation of home equity threw sand in the gears of the administration's refinancing initiative. That's because the original terms of the program precluded borrowers with mortgages exceeding 105 percent of their home's value from participating. But by expanding the loan-to-value cap to 125 percent, even borrowers who are significantly underwater will be eligible to refinance through Uncle Sam.

3. Efforts so far: When it rolled out the initiative earlier this year, the Obama administration said the refinancing program could reach up to 5 million homeowners. But in its release yesterday, HUD acknowledged that only "tens of thousands" of refinancings have occurred so far.

4. Expanded reach: The new standards could make up to 2 million additional borrowers eligible to refinance through the program, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. "This program could assist many homeowners who otherwise would have difficulty refinancing due to declining house prices," FHFA Director James Lockhart said yesterday.

5. Mortgage rate hurdle: But not all of those 2 million additional borrowers will end up refinancing. Some won't meet other program requirements, such as being current on their loan. But it's the recent upward trend in mortgage rates that represents perhaps the biggest threat to the program's success. Refinancing applications surged last fall and winter, after the federal government engineered mortgage rates of below 5 percent. But as bond traders became rattled by sharp increases in government spending, they sent yields on 10-year treasury notes—which fixed mortgage rates typically tack—skyward in recent months. As a result, mortgage rates surged, hitting 5.81 percent on June 11, according to HSH.com.

Since borrowers generally need a full percentage-point difference between their current rate and market rates to benefit from refinancing, higher rates have hammered the housing market. What's more, even as mortgage rates have drifted lower in recent weeks, refinancing applications have remained depressed. "While 30-year rates in the mid-5s are low on a long-term historical basis, they're not very low relative to the last five or six years," Mike Larson of Weiss Research said in a report. "The average since mid-2003 (when we had the last mega-boom in [refinancings]) is 6 percent, according to Freddie Mac. So the universe of mortgages that can be refinanced on a "rate and term" basis isn't very large in the mid-5s. ...We're going to need to see rates head back into the 4s to get the mortgage train rolling again."

6. Second housing tweak: The expansion of the Making Home Affordable program follows the Obama administration's recent change to its first-time home buyer tax credit
. In mid-February, the president enacted this tax incentive—which offers up to $8,000 to qualified first-time home buyers—to stimulate housing demand and help mop up excess supply. In late May, HUD unveiled a program that would provide buyers more immediate access to these funds, which they could put toward closing costs as well as a portion of their down payment.


http://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/the-home-front/2009/07/02/obamas-housing-rescue-expands-6-things-to-know.html

[samanthajane13]

Job Losses Drive Consumer Delinquencies to Record Highs
By Luke Mullins
Posted: July 7, 2009

The American Bankers Association is blaming the eroding labor market for a rise in consumer loan delinquencies, which have hit record high rates.

The trade group says that more than two million jobs were lost in the first quarter of 2009, bringing the job-loss tally to more than 6 million since the onset of the recession. As layoffs mount, more Americans become unable to make loan payments. The delinquent balances on accounts included in the ABA's composite of eight different installment loan categories increased to 3.35 percent in the first three months of 2009, up from 3.16 percent in the last quarter of 2008, according to the ABA's most-recent Consumer Credit Delinquency Bulletin, released Tuesday.

“The number one driver of delinquencies is job loss,” James Chessen, the ABA's chief economist, said in a statement. “When people lose their jobs, they can’t pay their bills. Delinquencies won’t improve until companies start hiring again and we see a significant economic turnaround.”

At the same time, delinquencies in home equity credit have hit record highs. Home equity loan delinquencies rose to 3.52 percent, an increase of nearly half a percentage point from the previous quarter. Delinquencies on home equity lines of credit, meanwhile, jumped 43 basis points to 1.89 percent.

“Even if home prices stop falling later this year, unemployment will keep home equity delinquencies high for some time,” Chessen added.

"The first quarter composite ratio is made up of the following closed-end loans. All figures are seasonally adjusted based upon the number of accounts:

Home equity loan delinquencies increased from 3.03 percent to 3.52 percent.

Property improvement loan delinquencies decreased from 1.75 percent to 1.46 percent.

Indirect auto loan delinquencies decreased from 3.53 percent to 3.42 percent.

Direct auto loan delinquencies increased from 2.03 percent to 3.01 percent.

Marine loan delinquencies decreased from 2.35 percent to 2.04 percent.

RV loan delinquencies increased from 1.38 percent to 1.52 percent.

Mobile home loan delinquencies increased from 2.96 percent to 3.70 percent.

Personal loan delinquencies increased from 2.88 percent to 3.47 percent."


http://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/the-home-front/2009/07/07/job-losses-drive-consumer-delinquencies-to-record-highs.html

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Mortgage Modification Efforts So Far: 5 Things You Need to Know
By Luke Mullins
Posted: July 1, 2009

The lynchpin of President Barack Obama's plan to rescue troubled home owners--and the housing market as a whole--is a sweeping effort to restructure distressed home loans through a process known as "mortgage modifications." The plan offers cash incentives to mortgage servicers who agree to bring a borrower's monthly loan payments down to 31 percent of their gross monthly income. The administration believes that making monthly mortgage bills more manageable will limit the home foreclosures that are putting such downward pressure on real estate prices.

But mortgage modifications have a checkered history of success. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, for example, says that almost 53 percent of loans modified in the first quarter of 2008 went bad again within six months. Proponents of loan modifications, meanwhile, argue that the approach can work--as long as mortgages are restructured the right way. The first-quarter mortgage metrics report released Wednesday by the OCC and the Office of Thrift Supervision included detailed findings on the mortgage industry's efforts to modify home loans so far. Here are five things you should know:

(It's important to note, however, that the Obama administrations loan modification plan was implemented after the conclusion of the first quarter, so it's impact is not reflected in this report.)

1. More Modifications: The regulators reported a sharp increase in the number of loan modifications that were initiated during the period. "Newly initiated loan modifications reached 185,156 during the quarter—rising by 55.3 percent from the previous quarter and 172.3 percent from the first quarter of 2008," the regulators said in the report. "The impact of this increase in modifications on reducing foreclosures and enabling borrowers to remain current on their loans will only be seen in future data."

2. Rate reductions most popular: The Obama administration's plan gives servicers a slew of options for bringing a borrower's debt-to-income ratio down to that 31-percent threshold. But the report finds that reducing the interest rate and extending the terms of the loan were the most popular approaches for reducing payments in the first quarter. "Of the modifications made in the first quarter of 2009, 70.2 percent included a capitalization of missed payments and fees, 63.2 percent included a reduction in interest rate, and 25.1 included an extended term," the regulators said in the report. "By comparison, 12.6 percent of the mortgages received modifications that froze the interest rate, 1.8 percent included a reduction of principal, and 1.1 percent included a deferral of principal."

3. More monthly payments reduced: Supporters of loan modifications argue that the approach has not been effective in the past on account of poor execution. Specifically, they note that often times a modified mortgage actually results in a higher monthly mortgage payment for the borrower. Lowering monthly payments is a key component of the Obama plan. But even before it was implemented, servicers were already taking steps to bring down monthly payments, the regulators found:

"Modifications during the first quarter of 2009 resulted in lower monthly principal and interest payments on 54.1 percent of all modified loans, as servicers focused on achieving more sustainable mortgage payments. The number of modifications that reduced payments by 20 percent or more nearly doubled in the first quarter compared with the previous quarter, increasing to 29.3 of all first quarter modifications and exceeding all other categories. Modifications that increased monthly payments declined to 18.5 percent of all modifications during the quarter, down from 25 percent in the fourth quarter and 33.5 percent in the third quarter. Actions that left payments unchanged increased to 27.3 percent."

4. Bigger reductions, better performance: This isn't terribly surprising, but it's worth pointing out that loan modifications that reduce monthly payments significantly have lower redefault rates.

5. Performance: It is still too soon to tell if the reduced-monthly-payment approach will drive down redefault rates significantly.


http://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/the-home-front/2009/07/01/mortgage-modification-efforts-so-far-5-things-you-need-to-know.html

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Principal Writedowns Make for Better Loan Modifications--But Nobody Does it
By Luke Mullins
Posted: June 26, 2009

President Barack Obama's loan modification plan gives servicers all kinds of options for getting a borrower's debt-to-income ratio down to that 31 percent threshold. They can extend the terms of the loan, lower the interest rate, and even--if they are so inclined--trim the unpaid principal balance of the loan itself. But the administration has been criticized for not mandating that servicers write down the principal balance when they modify a loan, which, some argue, would improve the effectiveness of the program.

"For underwater loans, if you don't write down the balance to be less than the value of the house, people still have an incentive to default," Richard Green, the director of the Lusk Center for Real Estate at USC, told me when the details of the plan were unveiled in early March. "Writing down the principal first instead of last—which is what [the Obama administration is] proposing—makes sense to me."

Judging from Lender Processing Services' June Mortgage Monitor Report, which was released Thursday, it seems that Green was correct. The report found that "the success rate for loss mitigation-related loan modification hovers in the 30-40% range, with a higher success rate for loan modifications involving a reduction in unpaid principal balance."

Still, while the percentage of principal writedown modifications has increased, servicers remain largely unwilling to reduce the outstanding balance of mortgages during modifications.


http://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/the-home-front/2009/06/26/principal-writedowns-make-for-better-loan-modifications--but-nobody-does-it

[samanthajane13]

Obama's Loan Modification Plan: 7 Things You Need to Know
The White House releases fresh details on its plan to save the housing market
By Luke Mullins
Posted: March 4, 2009



At the heart of the President Barack Obama's ambitious plan to rescue the housing market is the conviction that restructuring distressed mortgages will keep struggling borrowers in their homes and help insert a floor beneath plummeting property values. With $75 billion dedicated to reworking troubled loans, that's a big bet—especially considering that a top banking regulator said last December that almost 53 percent of loans modified in the first quarter of 2008 went bad again within six months. But supporters argue that mortgage modifications need to be properly engineered to work—and many early ones weren't. To that end, the Obama administration on Wednesday unveiled fresh details on its plan to restructure at-risk loans and help as many as four million home owners avoid foreclosure. Here are seven things you need to know about Obama's loan modification program.
Click here to find out more!

1. Payments, not prices: The plan centers on the belief that struggling borrowers will stay in their homes—even as values decline sharply—as long as they can make their monthly payments. Although not everyone agrees with this, billionaire investor Warren Buffett endorsed the philosophy in his most recent letter to shareholders. "Commentary about the current housing crisis often ignores the crucial fact that most foreclosures do not occur because a house is worth less than its mortgage (so-called “upside-down” loans)," Buffett wrote. "Rather, foreclosures take place because borrowers can’t pay the monthly payment that they agreed to pay."

2. Thirty-one percent: To that end, the administration's plan requires participating loan servicers to reduce monthly payments to no more than 38 percent of the borrower's gross monthly income. The government would then chip in to bring payments down further, to no more than 31 percent of the borrower's monthly income. In lowering the payment, the servicer would first reduce the interest rate to as low as 2 percent. If that's not enough to hit the 31 percent threshold, they would then extend the terms of the loan to up to 40 years. If that's still not enough, the servicer would forebear loan principal at no interest. The plan does not, however, require servicers to reduce mortgage principal, which Richard Green, the director of the Lusk Center for Real Estate at USC, considers a shortcoming. "For underwater loans, if you don't write down the balance to be less than the value of the house, people still have an incentive to default," Green says. "Writing down the principal first instead of last—which is what [the Obama administration is] proposing—makes sense to me."

3. Cash incentives: To encourage participation, servicers will be paid $1,000 for each modification and will get an additional $1,000 payout each year for as many as three years, as long as the borrower continues making payments. Borrowers, meanwhile, can get up to $1,000 knocked off the principal of their loan each year for as many as five years if they make their payments on time. Neither party can receive the cash incentives until the modified loan payments have been made for at least three months.

4. Financial hardship: The Obama administration is pitching its plan as an effort to help responsible homeowners ensnared in the historic housing slump and painful recession—not speculators. As such, only owner-occupied, primary residences with outstanding principal balances of up to $729,750 are eligible. Occupancy status will be verified through documents, such as the borrower's credit report. In addition, the program is designed to target homeowners who are undergoing "serious hardships"—such as a loss of income—which have put them at risk of default. To participate, borrowers will have to sign an affidavit of financial hardship and verify their income with documents. "If we would have had such stringent verification over the last four or five years, we probably wouldn't be in as bad a position as we are in," says Richard Moody, the chief economist at Mission Residential. But while Moody has no objection to such verification, obtaining documents from so many homeowners could be an onerous effort. "It's going to be a very time-consuming process," he says. Only loans originated on or before Jan. 1, 2009, are eligible, and modified payments will remain in place for five years. Now that the administration's plan is out, lenders are free to begin modifying loans.

5. Net present value: To determine if a particular mortgage will be modified, the servicer will perform a so-called net present value test. The test compares the expected cash flow that the loan would generate if it is modified with the expected cash flow it would generate if it isn't. If the modified loan is expected to produce more cash flow for the mortgage holder, the servicer is to restructure the loan. Howard Glaser, a mortgage industry consultant and a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development official during the Clinton administration, called this component of the plan "clever," arguing that it would work to ensure broad participation. "When you apply the formula, the loans that are modified are the ones that are in the best economic interest of the investors to modify," Glaser says. "The federal subsidy for the payment on the modification…tips the scale toward modification as a better deal for the investor."

6. Second liens: The Obama plan also addresses the issue of second liens—such as home equity loans or home equity lines of credit—by offering incentives to extinguish them. But key details on this component of the plan remained unclear. "Distinguishing the second lien is really important," Green says. "[But] exactly how they are going to convince the second lien holder to do this is not clear to me at all."

7. Will it work? Moody argues that while the plan may reduce foreclosures for primary residences, it could lead to a spike in defaults for another group of homeowners. Although he supports the administration's efforts to focus the initiative on primary residences, Moody notes that "it could be the case that a lot of [real estate speculators] have been just hanging on waiting to see exactly what the details are of this [plan]," Moody says. Now that it's clear the Obama plan leaves speculators out, "we could actually see a spike in foreclosures or at least mortgage defaults among this group."

Glaser, meanwhile, worries that lenders may soon be overwhelmed by inquiries from homeowners looking to participate. "Starting today, millions of borrowers are going to start to call their lenders to see whether or not they are eligible," he said. "And I'm not sure that the financial services industry
has the capacity to handle these inquiries."


http://www.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/real-estate/articles/2009/03/04/obamas-loan-modification-plan-7-things-you-need-to-know.html