The Mortgage Meltdown: Can Anyone Stop It?

Fifteen months into the worst credit crisis in decades, major banks and the federal government are coming together on a solution for struggling mortgage borrowers.

The goal is to hasten the process for renegotiating hundreds of thousands of delinquent loans, either those held by major banks or held by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance giants that faltered and were taken over by the government this summer.

Renegotiating loans for struggling homeowners has taken on more urgency as jobless claims rise and the economy declines. Housing prices continue to fall, leaving many with mortgages greater than the value of their homes, and banks continue to suffer major credit losses as a result.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency, the regulator for Fannie and Freddie, has announced its own sweeping plan.

The agency is targeting delinquent borrowers who haven’t filed for bankruptcy. The goal is to modify mortgages for borrowers who can support payments but make sure those payments don’t make up more than 38% of their income.

James Lockhart, head of the agency, urged U.S. mortgage servicing firms–companies that process payments of loans rather than owning them outright–to adopt the plan as a national standard.

For the government, halting the steady slide in housing prices is the holy grail of all of its big plans to prop up the ailing banking system. It is throwing trillions of dollars at shoring-up banks caught in the housing mess, but nothing has, so far, put a floor under the plunging housing prices at the heart of the credit crisis. Going at the problem from the perspective of a borrower is yet another way to achieve that end.

We’d love to know your opinion. Do you think this latest plan will do anything to halt this mortgage meltdown? Use the ”comment” link below to tell us what you think.