The main goals of the Obama foreclosure policy are to encourage more approvals for loan modifications, boost the number of approved applications for refinancing, and offer more home loans to people who want to acquire a house for the first time.  The Helping Families Save Their Homes Act that was signed into law in May 2009 by President Barack Obama is the main basis for the policy.  This legislation is a follow-up to the previous law known as the Hope for Homeowners Act that was tasked with assisting borrowers who found that the prices of their homes have become lower than the outstanding balance of their loans.

The Obama foreclosure policy is designed to help homeowners in getting the approval of the lenders, such as banks, for their petition for the refinancing of their loans so that their monthly payments will be reduced to affordable amounts.  However, an important qualification requirement is that the outstanding balance should not surpass the current home price by more than five percent.  The second goal of the President’s policy is to give incentives to the different banks and lenders whenever they approve a home loan modification that pushes down the monthly installments to an amount that does not exceed 31 percent of the monthly pay of the borrower.  The obama foreclosure policy also ensures that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be approving more new home loans by giving additional funds to these two corporations.

However, some have pointed out that the policy has had negligible effects as of September 2009 and its critics have jumped at the chance of highlighting the plan’s defects.  At the other end of the spectrum, those who favor the Obama foreclosure policy claim that it has started to have some positive effects.  For one, the plan seems to have been responsible for reversing the declining trend in home market values and the rising number of foreclosure filings in a number of states.  But those who are against the initiative countered that only a small number of the homeowners who should have qualified were granted loan modifications.  Other opponents of the Obama foreclosure policy also argued that the plan had not been based on dependable economic principles.  However, the Obama Administration remained optimistic about the plan and has reported that an important achievement was reached with regards to the number of approved loan modifications.  The members of the President’s Administration are optimistic that the Chief Executive’s anti-foreclosure strategy will work out in the long run and continue to inform the public about its achievements.