Obama's HAMP reaches milestone weeks ahead of schedule

Nearly one month ahead of a Nov. 1 benchmark set earlier this year, the U.S. Department of the Treasury and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have announced a new milestone of more than 500,000 trial loan modifications in progress under the Making Home Affordable Program (HAMP). The goal of 500,000 trial loan modifications by Nov. 1 initially set in July pushed servicers to ramp up program implementation and sustain a faster pace of modifications; trial modifications are now being issued at a faster rate than new homeowners are becoming eligible. Still, the Administration believes that more can and should be done to assist struggling homeowners and to stabilize the housing market. As part of a continued effort to improve program performance, senior Treasury and HUD officials held the next in a series of meetings with servicers this afternoon, with discussion focused on improving servicer efficiency and responsiveness to borrowers during the modification process. Additionally, Treasury and HUD released the next Monthly MHA Program Report, which tracks servicer performance through the month of September, ending Sept. 30, 2009. That report can be found by clicking here.