Homeowners in financial distress who are seeking ways by which they could avoid foreclosure will come to know that the attitude of their mortgage providers has a lot to do with whether or not they will gain assistance.
It does not even matter whether the delinquent homeowner is looking for assistance through the government’s Making Home Affordable program or a private program administered by the mortgage provider.
Although government backed programs towards ending the foreclosure crisis in the country have been extensive, these programs cannot single handedly solve the foreclosure problem. Programs from the Making Home Affordable initiative complement the efforts at helping the millions of people in the US who currently cannot afford their mortgages.
Despite the fact that government backed programs are sponsored using funds from the taxpayer, the success of these programs is dependent on whether the mortgage provider is willing to help the delinquent homeowner.
Many people have, over the past couple of years, wondered why this is so. One reason that may be attributed to this is the fact that mortgage providers are rather the ones who deal directly with homeowners. They are the ones who worked with the homeowners in initiating the loan in the first place.
This brings out the point some critics of the government backed programs have been raising. To these people, programs from the Making Home Affordable initiative have failed because; the program does not deal directly with the delinquent homeowner but seeks to reach the homeowner through an intermediate- the mortgage providers.
While we are all quick to blame mortgage providers for the inadequacies of the foreclosure prevention efforts, we must remember that they too face a challenge as they have to satisfy the needs of their lenders, borrowers and still make profits in order to keep the business going.
In spite of all these, this week saw an important milestone in the foreclosure prevention process since it began some couple of years back. The 5 million mortgage modification milestone was celebrated across the country.
As mortgage providers and government officials seek to pat themselves on the back, we are quick to draw their attention to the fact that the Home Affordable Modification Program alone was billed to modify the mortgage of about 4 million delinquent homeowners.
However, the figure being celebrated now stands for the combined efforts of both government and private sector partners. The private sector alone accounts for 4.1 million modified mortgages. This exemplifies the importance of the private sector in helping homeowners to find solutions to their mortgage problems.
However, the sad part of the whole saga is that 20% of the homeowners who secured mortgage modification either from their mortgage servicers or from government sources were found to be in a position where they could not continue making the reduced payment just after 90 days of receiving the modified terms.
The program to mark the 5 millionth home loan modification was held under the auspices of HOPE NOW. HOPE NOW, looking at statistics that show that 24% of foreclosures in the country occur in Florida decided to make this pronouncement in Florida to give hope to the millions of people who are wondering if they would ever secure lower payment on their mortgages.
HOPE NOW also used the occasion to commend Ocwen Financial Services for actively employing proprietary home loan modification as a way to assist its homeowners who cannot make mortgage payments.