By Stacey Cowley | The New York Times
After an eight-year run, a troubled government effort to prevent foreclosures and keep struggling borrowers in their homes came to an end last month.
What happens next will be a Trump-era laboratory experiment in how financial services companies conduct themselves when the regulatory fetters are loosened.
The expired Obama-era program — known as HAMP, the Home Affordable Modification Program — was widely criticized for its poor execution. Participation was voluntary for banks, and many that opted in did so unenthusiastically. (At one bank, “the floor of the room in which the bank dumped the voluminous unopened HAMP applications actually buckled under the packages’ sheer weight,” according to a scathing oversight report.)
