[1]Recently, DS News covered what the future of loss mitigation will look like after the expiration of HAMP on December 31, 2016. To explore the topic further, DS News sat down with Meg Burns, Managing Director of The Collingwood Group, to discuss the opportunities that come from pairing a new administration with housing policies such as loss mitigation, regulatory compliance, and more.
Burns joined The Collingwood Group in 2014, and as Managing Director, supports the firm’s Business Advisory and Business Development practices. Prior to Collingwood, Burns served as the Senior Associate Director of the Office of Housing and Regulatory Policy at the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). There, she managed various policy and regulatory initiatives involving single-family and multifamily finance and loss mitigation strategies, as well as insurance-related activities of the government-sponsored enterprises. As such, she was actively involved in industry-wide discussions regarding the role of the federal government in addressing the mortgage crisis.
With the end of HAMP drawing close, what is to come for loss mitigation?
The fact that the sunset of HAMP coincides with the arrival of a new leadership team in Washington is a great opportunity because there is a chance for a really fresh policy dialogue. The good news is that the industry has a lot of work that has been underway for quite sometime now to put forward a good plan for a new set of loss mitigation strategies including a particular set of modifications. It is a very cool time for HAMP to be expiring in some respects and I think that what we will see are some programs that really do reflect the lessons that have been learned. I also think that the reason a new leadership team in Washington is so helpful is because we can have really honest discussions and assessment of what those lessons learned are. It is often a lot easier for a new group of policy leaders to embrace the policy achievement of the team before them but also to acknowledge program flaws without feeling defensive or like they were integrally associated with them. At its core, what was reaffirmed through the HAMP experience was something that most good policymakers know very well which is that complicated program rules generally translate into fewer program beneficiaries. In the HAMP space there was an extended period where they were really striving for perfection and precision both in the data collection aspect and some of the calculations to determine who was eligible. One of the lessons learned in HAMP is that striving for that perfection and precision really rendered fewer distressed borrowers eligible. I think that what we will see are the modifications that replace HAMP will be modifications that follow some basic rules rather than complex calculations.