Obama Mortgage Plan Why So Slow

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Mortgage Plans did not take long to be at the top of domestic issues for Obama after taking office. It was not long after his first month that in a packed out High School in Mesa, Obama launched an unprecedented effort to keep 9 million homeowners from losing their homes and to stabilize the housing market.

This plan was not done on the cheap, it was backed by $50 billion from the bailout fund created after the housing crisis began. The plan is according to analysts working, but slowly, maybe even too slowly. The initial goal of the Obama administration was to save 4 million homeowners from foreclosure; the current results are a couple orders a magnitude below that.
The Obama administration is well aware of this and has taken steps to try to boost the plan. One of such steps has been to invite the top 25 banks and loan providers with the respective top dogs of Treasury and Housing Urban Development to see what can be done to accelerate the program.

Another method used by the administration and the respective departments of Treasury and Housing has to be name and shame or otherwise cajole companies into doing more. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan wrote in an open letter to the industry: “Much more progress is needed”. This statement was followed by a name and shame statement listing the top banks and their performance with loan modifications which left big names like Bank of America, Wells and Wachovia looking rather bad.

So what are the results up to now? How many have been helped?
Up to July 55,000 borrowers received loan modifications and 200,000 were enrolled in three month trials that if successful will lead to a full on loan modification that is affordable for the homeowner.