Loan modifications don’t cut payments

Home owners in trouble with payments aren’t seeing big breaks on their monthly costs. The federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision reported that less than half of loan modifications made last year cut payments by more than 10 percent. That’s changing for the better, the government said, noting that 37 percent of loan modifications in the last quarter of 2008 cut payments by more than 10 percent, up from about 25 percent in the preceding nine months of the year. Floridians will be heavily represented among the 9 million homeowners the Obama administration is trying to help stave off foreclosure.