Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Secretary Shaun Donovan: The President is addressing this problem.
Refinancing a mortgage can help get somebody back above water
much faster, but it's only one part of the President's plan to
help get homeowners back above water.
We've made the biggest investment,
we've had the biggest step for principal reduction in the
history of our housing market through the $25 billion mortgage
servicing settlement that we reached in February.
This was with a coalition of 49 state attorneys general,
24 republicans, 25 democrats.
And it really proved that we can still do big things across
partisan and across geographic lines --
that we're putting our country in front of our party.
We're putting our country ahead of our party.
And that's an important thing.
Specifically, what this servicing settlement is going to
do is deliver tens of billions of dollars of
principal reduction.
We think as many as a million families could have their
principal permanently reduced.
As we speak today, right now, there are tens of thousands of
families that have already had principal reduced.
There are hundreds of thousands of letters that have gone out to
families across the country letting them know that, hey,
you've got the opportunity to permanently reduce
your principal.
That's a critical part of the President's plan as well.
And we're not stopping there.
We've provided huge new incentives to get principal
reduction as part of the five million modifications we've done
for families on their mortgages since the President came
into office.
We're seeing the results of that and many other steps that we're
taking as well to get principal reduced and to help families get
their heads back above water to start rebuilding the equity
that's so important in their lives.