Federal Mortgage Program

The government’s loan modification program has helped about 300,000 defaulting households get permanent new loans, according to federal data released yesterday, but that is only a small fraction of the estimated four million households in danger of foreclosure and of the 1.7 million households that the governments thinks would qualify for the program, the New York Times reported today. Started only a year ago, the Making Home Affordable Program already seems to be running low on applicants. The number of borrowers that enrolled in the trial phrase in April was only about a third of the number that signed up in September. More than 637,000 households are now in the trial phase of the program, during which borrowers need to consistently make their payments. Many in that phase do not survive to a full modification, when a permanent new loan is secured. The number of failed trials, 278,000, is nearly as great as the number of successful ones.