Today the Obama administration released its monthly “scorecard” for the Making Home Affordable Program (MHA), a.k.a. the federal mortgage bailout. The Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), which is part of MHA, continues to add trial modifications at about 29,000 per month and permanent modifications, a bit less, at 26,000. The redefault rate on the permanent modifications is now at 12 percent.

This month the administration released the first numbers on its Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternative program (HAFA), which pays borrowers $3000 to vacate their homes through short sales (where the bank agrees to let the home be sold for less than the value of the mortgage) and deeds in lieu of foreclosure (essentially giving the keys back to the bank). Banks get monetary incentives as well for that. So far 4500 borrowers have vacated their homes under this program.

It should be noted that in the past two weeks members of the House of Representatives voted to abolish the government’s mortgage bailout, including the HAMP and HAFA programs. It’s interesting that in light of that, the usually optimistic administration put forth this statement:

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