The Obama Administration is apparently going to crack down hard on banks that have received taxpayer funds to get them to complete more mortgage modifications.   The Wall Street Journal is reporting that expectations are increasing that people get their mortgages reduced.

Calculated Risk has an excellent chart that shows the rather rapid growth in the number of mortgage modifications.

Market-Ticker minces no words on this.   There have been essentially no permanent loan modifications accepted for the past 5 months.   I’m not sure what the banks are doing.  Is this an issue on the part of the borrower?   Could be.  Could it be that the market conditions just continue to deteriorate so the banks eventually don’t agree to the final loan mod?  Hard to say.

What is interesting is that there are all kinds of businesses out there that supposedly will help you get a loan modification.  The typical fee runs from $1,500 to $3,000 often times with no guarantee that they will get a modification done.   Well, if you read Market-Ticker, trying to get a loan modification done sounds like a complete waste of time.   BTW, if you want to do a loan modification, you can do it on your own.  You don’t need to pay someone that kind of money to negotiate with the banks.