Gov't expands housing plan, off to slow start

For the past two months Rose Inman hoped she could benefit from President Barack Obama's plan to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. Now it appears to be too late.

Aurora Loan Services is set to foreclose on her home overlooking Seattle's Puget Sound on Friday. Despite numerous calls, e-mails and letters, she says she's only been able to have one phone conversation with a company representative.

"It's like this huge, concrete thick wall that you cannot get through," said Inman, 58, who is working as a human resources consultant, but making much less than she was before she was laid off by the City of Seattle.

On Thursday, the Obama administration said its bold mortgage assistance program launched in March is helping thousands of borrowers, though some lenders are working faster than others. So far, participating mortgage companies have made more than 55,000 offers to modify borrowers' loans, but officials could not say how many of those homeowners had in fact been helped.

And knowing that many troubled homeowners can't be, the Obama administration expanded its $50 billion mortgage aid program, announcing new measures that would help homeowners avoid a foreclosure if they don't qualify for other assistance.

The initiatives are intended to streamline the process of selling a home that is worth less than the mortgage, or transfer ownership of a home to the lender. Both options will still ding the homeowner's credit score, but less than a foreclosure.

So far, 14 companies - including Aurora Loan Services, Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan Chase - have signed up and will be paid for each loan they modify. And to further entice mortgage companies to participate, the government is offering payments totaling up to $10 billion to compensate them for the risk of falling home prices.

"The basic problem is that the program is very complicated and involved to set up," said Guy Cecala, publisher of trade publication Inside Mortgage Finance. He doesn't expect to see large volumes of loan modifications before July or August.

While some mortgage companies have added staff and made preparations for the program, others are apparently lagging behind. Many housing counselors across the country complain that the program has been slow getting off the ground.

"Our experience at the ground level has been, so far, frustrating," said Michael van Zalingen, director of homeownership at Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago, a counseling group. Entry-level employees at mortgage companies, he said, are either steering borrowers away from the plan or are entirely unaware of it.

Housing counselors say many borrowers, like Inman, who should qualify, are still losing their homes.

"We offer a wide range of foreclosure prevention options to our customers," Deborah Munies, an Aurora spokeswoman, said in an e-mail, while declining to comment on Inman's case. "In cases where the customer has the ability and willingness to make a reasonable monthly payment, we make every effort to avoid foreclosure. Foreclosure is pursued only when a variety of other workout options have not been successful."

Government officials estimate up to 4 million borrowers will get their loans modified under the Obama plan, but housing experts like Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com expect the number will be less than half of that.

There have been, of course, lucky homeowners like Daniel Iturriaga, 45, a warehouse worker from Compton, Calif. Working with a counselor from Springboard, a nonprofit counseling group, Iturriaga was able to get JPMorgan Chase and Fannie Mae to modify his home loan.

He's going from a monthly payment of about $2,300 to about $1,275. After a three-month trial period, it should be final in mid-June.

"It's a long process, but I still have a little hope to stay in my home" said Iturriaga, who bought his home for about $400,000 in 2005 and has seen houses on the same block sell for half as much. "I'm pretty happy."

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said, "We're seeing a lot of progress in a very short period of time."

The initiatives announced Thursday are aimed at ineligible homeowners: borrowers who are unemployed or owe significantly more than their homes are worth.

Generally, there are two options for them to avoid foreclosure. The homeowner can sign the property title over to the lender in what is known as a deed in lieu of foreclosure. Or, with the lender's permission, the homeowner can sell the property for less than the value of the loan a so-called "short sale."

Mortgage companies would get up to $1,000 and borrowers would get up to $1,500 in relocation costs.

For months, real estate agents have complained that it's difficult to get lenders to agree to a short sale, and the process takes so long that many deals fall apart.

"They do not have their institutions staffed properly, that's the problem, "said Lisa Gregory, a real estate agent with Prudential California Realty in Del Mar, Calif. "I don't think encouraging these processors with an extra $1,000 will help because they aren't motivated," she said, but added that "this certainly sounds better than nothing."

Since the program involves taxpayer dollars, the lending industry needs to make sure it sets up the program correctly, said Faith Schwartz, executive director of Hope Now, a mortgage industry group formed in response to the foreclosure crisis. "This is a very well-thought out plan," she said. "People have to be a little bit patient."

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AP Real Estate Writer J.W. Elphinstone contributed to this report from New York.