Mortgage Modifications: Help or Hindrance?

Reading between the lines in his story, Mr. Vellucci had virtually no savings (making his house payments tapped him out in four months). His income was moderate at the best of times, and his house payment was so large that everything had to go right for him. If he was out of work or lost a tenant for any length of time, he was going to end up in defaulting. As of the story’s publication, he was still on the dialysis that cost him his job, meaning he is not going to regain his income any time soon. There was no way that any imaginable mortgage modification was going to clean up this mess. Yet he gave the last of his savings to a skeezy servicer in some sort of tragic Hail Mary pass. Why would he do something so patently insane? Apparently he was hoping that he could get a second modification under MHA. But his interest rate wasn’t his problem. He had a mortgage principal that probably ran into the mid six-figures, and no job, and probably required a modification that slashed his payment in half. The Obama program clearly raised ridiculous, unrealistic hopes in at least a few people.