A new federal mortgage plan "won’t solve the housing bust,” said Rick Newman in Seeking Alpha, but “some beleaguered homeowners will finally be eligible for a tiny slice of the government’s huge bailout fund.” Starting Dec. 15, certain qualified non-bankrupt homeowners at least 90 days behind in their mortgage for a home they occupy will be eligible to renegotiate their payments to no more than 38 percent of household income.
The plan covers mortgages held by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, said Liz Moyer in Forbes online, but large banks have joined in the effort—out of “self-preservation.” For the government, as well as lenders, stopping the rash of foreclosures and steady slide in housing prices is “the holy grail of all of its big plans to prop up the ailing banking system.”
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