When her brother could no longer help support her, Luzetta Reeves asked her small mortgage company to cut her monthly payments. It did ”” by 11 percent ”” making it possible for her to afford her house here on her modest fixed income.
In Miami, Jeffrey Mitchell saw his family income drop just as real estate taxes and insurance premiums increased, making his monthly mortgage payments crushing. He got a lower interest rate, too. But with the added fees and penalties, his monthly payment remained the same. He is now back in foreclosure.
As the Obama administration steps up efforts to help troubled homeowners modify their mortgages, it might consider the experiences of these two South Florida borrowers and their mortgage companies, one small, one large.
National statistics on mortgage modifications suggest that what happened to Ms. Reeves, a disabled 54-year-old, and Mr. Mitchell, a 42-year-old union representative, is fairly typical.
Read it all from the front page of Thursday’s New York Times
For the record (and not for the first time) I am using the headline from the print edition.