Thanks for the great info TiMP as always..
I'd looked into this program closely to see if, once I became a broke student rather than a corporate workerbee, this was a program that would be helpful for my household.
In researching it thoroughly it seems that in principal it could be helpful, what confused me was that the government requires lenders to review the cost of foreclosure verus the cost to modify a loan, and if it's cheaper for the bank to modify the loan, lenders must do so. But wouldn't a business normally do what's in it's best (financial) interest anyway? Presumably this had to do with mortgages being repackaged and sold to many small investors, and that it might be too tough to get all of the "owners" of the repackaged mortgage together?
My primary reason for not pursuing this plan myself came from digging into the plan and what it actually does -- apparently the first step is that borrowers are put on a "trial" modification plan for 3 months or so, without guarantees of any permanent modification. Some lenders apparently are not familiar with this program or are responding very slowly to borrowers in immediate risk of delinquency/foreclosure. So if this is truly a last resort to save a home, it sounds like another option. But if there is any other option (I ultimately did a refi & dropped the rate) that may be a more secure/certain option.
