
Only about 4% of troubled borrowers have received long-term help under the Obama administration’s foreclosure prevention program, Treasury officials said Thursday.
A nearly equal number of trial modifications have been denied permanent assistance, the report showed. The reasons include not making monthly payments on time, not submitting all the necessary paperwork and not qualifying for reasons [...]

At 8 a.m., homeowner Rodney Wynn was drowning under his $1,800-per-month, 13.4% interest rate mortgage. But by 5 p.m., he had found some relief: a 4.7% loan with a $970 monthly payment.
Wynn, a program director for a youth home in North Carolina, is just one of a growing number of homeowners getting dream workouts on [...]

It should come as no surprise that fewer troubled borrowers will redefault if their loan payments are lowered in a mortgage modification.
Now, there’s federal data that shows this is true.
Only 18.7% of borrowers who had their loans modified in the second quarter were delinquent three months later, according to a banking regulators’ report released Monday. [...]