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At a briefing of state housing counselors held this week at the ""HomeFree-USA"":http://www.homefreeusa.org/ office in Prince George's County,
[IMAGE]Maryland, ""Congressman Steny Hoyer"":http://www.hoyer.house.gov/ and ""Raymond Skinner, Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development secretary"":http://www.msa.md.gov/msa/mdmanual/17dhcd/html/msa02798.html, both expressed their support for HOPE LoanPort, making Maryland the first state in the nation to publicly endorse the program.
Developed by ""HOPE NOW"":http://www.hopenow.com/, the industry-created alliance of mortgage servicers, investors, counselors, and other mortgage market participants, HOPE LoanPort is a Web-based tool that streamlines loan modification applications, including those used for the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), by allowing housing counselors to efficiently transmit completed applications to mortgage servicers. The program aims to improve the quality of both the application itself and the ability of servicers to make decisions on that application.
In a room full of Maryland housing counselors, mortgage servicers, state officials, and others, Hoyer praised housing counselors for their efforts, and Skinner discussed the
[COLUMN_BREAK]need for improved technology in assisting at-risk homeowners with loan modifications.
""It is discouraging to continually hear that lost paperwork is stalling impending mortgage solutions,"" Skinner said. ""We believe that HOPE LoanPort will allow housing counselors across the state to focus on reaching positive outcomes rather than dealing with missing documents. As a state housing finance agency, we also look forward to using HOPE LoanPort as a tool to solve loss mitigation issues with our borrowers.""
Several other panelists spoke at the briefing as well. Vicki Bott, deputy assistant secretary for single family programs at HUD reviewed the recent changes to HAMP proposed by the Obama administration, and Chad Williams, executive director of the Coalition for Homeownership Preservation, spoke about the increased role of housing counselors across the region. Several HOPE LoanPort board members, including chairman William Longbrake, and three mortgage servicer representatives rounded out the panel.
""We are thrilled that the state of Maryland has thrown its support behind HOPE LoanPort, and we hope that other states will follow Maryland's example of finding viable and progressive solutions for keeping more families in their homes,"" said Larry Gilmore, CEO of HOPE LoanPort.
Currently, HOPE LoanPort has eight mortgage servicers and more than 100 nonprofit counseling organizations across the country committed to its program. The servicers signed on to HOPE LoanPort include ""American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc."":https://ahmsi3.com/servicing/home.asp, ""Bayview Loan Servicing"":https://www.bayviewloanservicing.com/, ""Chase"":http://mortgage.chase.com/pages/shared/gateway.jsp, ""GMAC"":http://www.gmacmortgage.com/index.html, ""Ocwen"":http://www.ocwen.com/, ""PNC Mortgage"":http://www.pncmortgage.com/, ""Saxon Mortgage Services"":https://www.saxononline.com/common/home/, and ""SunTrust Mortgage, Inc."":http://www.suntrustmortgage.com/
