A four-year program by a federal housing agency to sell its most delinquent mortgages to private investors is producing modest returns when it comes to keeping those struggling borrowers in their homes, the New York TimesDealBook blog reported yesterday. To date, 2,049 mortgage sold to investors under the program have been reworked to allow the borrowers — many of whom had not made a mortgage payment in three years — to remain in their homes and start making payments again, according to a report released on Friday by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. But the overwhelming majority of the 73,000 troubled mortgages sold to investment firms, private equity shops and hedge funds have been either foreclosed on or the borrower was permitted to walk away from a home in exchange of forfeiting any rights to the property. Roughly half of the loans sold to investors remain delinquent and have yet to be reworked, sold or foreclosed.
