White House promises more help for homeowners facing foreclosure

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Under pressure to stem the foreclosure crisis, the Obama administration launched a plan Friday to reduce the amount some troubled U.S. borrowers owe on their home loans and give jobless homeowners a temporary break.

Administration officials cautioned that the plan won’t stop all foreclosures or help all troubled homeowners. Instead, officials said their goal is to meet their original target, announced last year, of helping 3 million to 4 million borrowers avoid foreclosure.

The new effort is designed to help two groups:

— Borrowers who owe more on their loans than their houses are worth. Nearly 15 million homeowners fall into this category, according to Moody’s Analytics. About 10 million of them owe at least 20 percent more than their house’s current value. You can check out Guides4homeowners for the best advice.

These people would be helped in either of two ways: Their mortgage companies can cut the total amount they owe on their mortgage. Or they can refinance into loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration, which insures loans against default. The FHA will get $14 billion in incentive money from the federal bailout fund.

— Unemployed borrowers. People receiving unemployment benefits would see their mortgage payments drop to no more than 31 percent of their monthly income — but only for three to six months. That’s intended to give homeowners more time to find a job. Once they do, they may qualify for a loan modification that would permanently reduce their payments.

The administration’s existing program to prevent foreclosures has failed to make a dent in the problem. A lack of planning and shifting rules on qualifications for it produced a huge backlog in the program, the special inspector general for the federal financial bailout fund told lawmakers this week. Only 170,000 homeowners have completed loan modifications out of 1.1 million who began the program over the past year.

On Friday, administration officials played down any notion that the new plan would solve the foreclosure epidemic. About 6 million homeowners have missed at least two months of payments.

Diana Farrell, a White House economic adviser, said the plan won’t prevent most of the 10 million to 12 million foreclosures expected over the next three years. Doing so, she said, “wouldn’t be fair, it would be too expensive and we probably wouldn’t succeed in any case, because many people got into homes that they simply cannot afford.”

The administration also stressed that the plan won’t aid investors, speculators or “Americans living in million-dollar homes or defaulters on vacation homes.”

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, estimated the plan could help 1 million and 1.5 million homeowners avoid foreclosure, compared with about 500,000 if no changes were made in the program.

“The changes are wide-ranging and significant and have the real potential for bringing the foreclosure crisis to a much quicker end,” Zandi said.

But preventing even a fraction of potential foreclosures could help stem the slide in home prices. That would encourage those who are “under water” — who owe more than their homes are worth — to keep paying their mortgages as prices stabilize.

The plan announced Friday will require the mortgage companies participating in the administration’s existing foreclosure prevention program to consider slashing the amount borrowers owe. They will get incentive payments if they do so.

It also includes three to six months of temporary aid for borrowers who have lost their jobs. And there will be additional payments to give banks an incentive to reduce payments or eliminate second mortgages such as home equity loans. That problem that has blocked many loan modifications.

The four big holders of second mortgages — Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. — have now joined the government’s program to modify second mortgages, after pressure from the Treasury Department. That program was delayed for months but now the major players in the industry are on board.