Obama administration releases new mortgage mod program figures

The Obama administration has just released new data on its much-criticized foreclosure prevention program, along with its monthly housing scorecard, in which it reports a new tally of 1.4 million mortgage modification trials begun under the Home Affordable Mortgage Program between April 2009 and December 2010. According to the administration’s preliminary analysis of the figures, participants in HAMP are mostly middle-income homeowners with underwater mortgages. These homeowners — 18 percent of whom are African American and 26 percent of whom are Hispanic — have a median income of $46,000 and a median credit score of 570. After their monthly mortgage payments are cut by a median of 40 percent, they have a median loan balance of $232,000. Their median loan-to-value ratio is 118 percent. TRD