78 – Applications in Business and Economics
A Statistical Analysis of the Performance of HAMP
James Gentle
George Mason University
Xun Wang
George Mason University
In February 2009, Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) was initiated by the Department of Treasury to modify the residential mortgages of distressed borrowers in order to prevent foreclosure and stabilize the housing market. By October 2011, HAMP has admitted 830,000 borrowers into permanent modifications. Despite criticism HAMP performs well with a consistently lower than industry benchmark re-default rate. Treasury attributed HAMP's performance to the significant reduction of monthly mortgage payments. By utilizing the HAMP public data, this paper attempts to explain HAMP's performance by examining the correlations of other mortgage attributes such as geographic location, income level, and loan to value ratio with the re-default rates of modified loans.