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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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All eyes are on roughly 800,000 homeowners who still start transitioning out of the Obama administration's main foreclosure prevention initiative this year, the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). About 28 percent of the borrowers who qualified for HAMP redefaulted since the government launched its effort in 2009 and are no longer in the program. Starting this year, homeowners in HAMP will see their rates gradually climb, but some housing advocates fear that wages and home prices have not improved enough for some of these borrowers. Of most interest to those tracking the issue are the loans that are due to readjust this year and next. Those loans belong to the folks who were hit earlier in the foreclosure crisis, the ones who were probably subprime borrowers concentrated in weaker markets with higher unemployment rates, said Dan Immergluck, a housing policy professor at Georgia Tech.
