Have you experienced a foreclosure within the past 2 years? I am a psychology researcher doing a short internet survey (less than 20 minutes) and I would appreciate if you could help me by filling it out. The survey is about your experience and thoughts about your foreclosure. Participation is completely voluntary and you can stop at any time. As well, your participation is anonymous and you will never be asked to provide your name or any other identifying information. Please note that you must be over 18 to participate in this survey. The survey has been reviewed by the University of California Institutional Review Board.

If you would like to participate, please click here or go to the following link:

http://www.surveymonkey.com

Thank you for your help – your responses can help us to better understand how people cope with the difficulties of foreclosure.

Kate Sweeny, PhD
Department of Psychology
University of California, Riverside

For those who follow the progress of the Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, it is possible to use unemployment insurance payments to qualify for a loan modification. Good Idea? It will certainly allow some borrowers to complete a modification and perhaps to keep up with that modification until those unemployment payments run out. The optimistic will say it’s likely the borrower just needs a little time to find a job, then they’ll have regular income to replace the unemployment. The realistic will counter that many people who have recently lost work aren’t likely to find employment in the industries where they once worked.
Anyone who worked in the construction trades or in any real estate segment probably isn’t going to see new jobs opening up anytime soon. The same holds true with manufacturing, information and professional and business services.

Sept. 09 Unemployment Rates in selected sectors from BLS
17.1% Construction
11.9% Manufacturing
11.2% Information
11.3% Professional and business services
11.1% Agriculture and related private wage and salary workers

I don’t see it as anything more than “kick the can”, with the hope the can gets kicked far enough the real estate market will begin to recover before too many modifications fall apart.

From Business Insider:

Mortgage expert and one-time Fannie Mae Chief Credit Officer Edward Pinto blasts the claim that 500,000 homeowners have entered into HAMP (Home Affordable Modification Program).

Based on comments being made by industry participants and program results to date, HAMP is rapidly becoming: I will pretend to modify your loan if you pretend that you will make the payments.

While it’s admirable to try to get large numbers of people involved in programs to “save” their home from foreclosure, it’s also known to those who have worked with people in foreclosure that it is difficult to get paperwork completed in a timely fashion. The 3-5 month trial window allows some “extend and pretend” but I fear this article is correct in stating a very significant percentage of those homes aren’t going to be saved, foreclosure is just going to be delayed.

So, What’s it mean?
I’m guessing it’s designed to calm everyone down as we pass that “100 banks seized” number and prevent any possible bank runs. After all, she does say that it’s unlikely your bank will have to be taken over. Should have put some emphasis on the YOUR, one of MY banks already bit the dust. She did place emphasis on what happened in the S&L crisis with 500 some odd institutions having been taken over, so we aren’t close to that number yet, but financial institutions tend to be quite a bit larger now. 5 times larger? I don’t know.

But, FDIC is backstopped with the Treasury, who is also backstopping all the really big banks and some major automobile companies and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, so we’ll be fine. Or probably be fine.