The Administration wants Fannie and Freddie to work with bank mortgage servicers to refinance Fannie/Freddie held mortgages at lower interest rates. That requires the servicers to cooperate, but one of the largest, Wells Fargo, just announced it wouldn’t work with mortgage serviced by others, a stand that could limit the effectiveness of the new HARP Refi programs.

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan faced the Senate Banking Committee today, and he said that the foreclosure fraud settlement will shortly be made public.

There’s wide agreement President Obama will likely have to make more recess appointments if he wants to staff key positions, including the newly-created vacancy at the Office of Management and Budget, as Jack Lew has become White House Chief of Staff. The assumption here is that Republicans will react to recess appointments at the CFPB and the NLRB by refusing to confirm any other Presidential appointee. Now California Dems want a recess appointment for the FHFA.

The President statement yesterday in Las Vegas on the Administration’s new refinancing initiative was circumspect about their claims. There’s a debate now about how effective and far reaching this will be, with some arguing it could have a significant economic effect, and others far more skeptical.

The White House will announce that millions more underwater homeowners can take advantage of a refinancing program if their loan is owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. This is a plan the President announced as part of his American Jobs Act speech It will open up the Home Affordable Refinancing Program to everyone who’s current on their loan, regardless of how far underwater they are.

Banksters have figured out that they can stall real solutions to the housing/foreclosure mess and eventually the congress will give them some kind of back door bailout. They are probably right.

Johnny Cash & Miss Piggy, from Season 5 (1981) of ‘The Muppet Show’ Grab your popcorn, put your feet up on the seatback in front of ya, and aim your spitballs at the ushers please. This is Late Late Night FireDogLake, where off topic is the topic … so dive in. What’s on your mind?

Many of the banks lack the proper paper trail to prevail in foreclosure and that judges are beginning to wake up to this, and sometimes even cancel mortgages outright, it is not surprising that the banks are beginning to realize that their own bad faith, their own shoddy dealing, their own rupturing of the social contract has put them in a position where they may not be in the driver’s seat on foreclosures much longer. No wonder the baks are starting to preach the gospel of mortgage modification.

Bill collectors are NOT social workers, debt counselors or consumer advocates. They are bill collectors, they will eat you. Oh, they may call themselves “mortgage servicers”, but what does that mean? It means they collect the money from the homeowners.

If the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) is right for you, you’d better get crackin’ on refinancing; HARP expires in June 2010.