FLASHBACK: Congress Rejects Measure to Help Struggling Families Amid Shower of Special Interest Money
Shahien Nasiripour
Huffington Post
January 10, 2010
An Obama administration plan announced in April to help up to half of all struggling homeowners modify their second mortgages has yet to officially launch, the Treasury Department acknowledged Friday.
[efoods]The program, a component of the administration’s $75 billion Making Home Affordable effort, was supposed to attack second-lien mortgages, which are additional, second mortgages taken out on a home on top of the initial first mortgage. It’s like taking out two loans to pay the same debt.
The Second Lien Program is supposed to automatically reduce the payments on a second mortgage when the first mortgage is modified under the administration’s loan modification effort, the Home Affordable Modification Program. The administration says that by lowering monthly mortgage payments, HAMP will eventually help up to four million homeowners stay in their homes
Some housing experts say the second-mortgage component of the plan is necessary to effectively tackle the foreclosure mess — 3 million foreclosure notices were sent out in 2009; another 3 million are estimated to go out this year — because so many distressed homeowners have second mortgages.
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