A growing recognition that the Obama Administration’s Home Affordability and Stability Program (HASP) is not working in its current design has fingers pointed all over Washington D.C. trying to place blame on mortgage servicers, investors and the administration itself. At hearings this week in Washington, comments ranged from encouraging to total frustration as expressed by Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) who said, “It’s just hard to explain to the working families in America how it is we could move so fast with extraordinarily complicated deals with the huge financial institutions, and we are moving so incredibly slowly, mired in paperwork, in rules, in talking to banks back home.”

With predictions for 3.5 million foreclosures by the end of this year and 9 million by the end of 2012, the fact that the program has initiated less than 150,000 loan modifications as it enters its fifth month has industry experts trying to figure out what went wrong and what can done to fix it. While there isn’t yet a full spectrum solution to the issue, the problems of the program have become well defined. They include:  

Read the rest of this entry »