“The program was a temporary Band-Aid,” said Greg McBride, a senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com. “Five years later, that Band-Aid is going to be ripped off.”
The initiative was based on the flawed assumption that the economy would bounce back more quickly, undoing the damage wrought by plunging home prices and high unemployment. The program lowered the monthly mortgage payments of qualified borrowers for five years, presumably long enough for them to regain their financial footing.
"Everybody" thought everything would just return to normal in recovery summer. Almost 4 years ago.