Less than 1% of home buyers bought more home than they could afford. 50% of sub-prime borrowers actually qualified for prime rate loans but were sold sub-prime mortgages because those loans were more profitable.
I purchased my mortgage in 2006 and 80% of the mortgages sold that year contained fraud including my own 30 year fixed rate mortgage.
The Wall Street banks created the bubble in real estate putting homeowners on the hook for imaginary home values. The more loans sold and the higher the loan amounts, the higher the fees, commissions & Swaps the banks could collect on the fraudulent mortgage backed securities the banks created and sold to investors.
Homeowners with equity were encouraged to put that equity to work for them so they could purchase automobiles, pay college tuition, etc. The banksters were just looking for as many loans as possible to sell to investors.
Homeowners are not responsible for being underwater.
I am in agreement with you in that I also believe this proposal is little more than electioneering. So many of the loans sold to homeowners contained fraud and I am at a loss to understand how fraud can be modified or refinanced.
We already have a property Title crisis in this country and a mass of refinancing would only worsen that crisis. Securitized mortgages have gaps in the chain of Title as it is. Refinancing would only add additional invalid and fraudulent Assignments of Mortgage & Satisfactions of Mortgage to our land records and do nothing to clear the clouded property Titles.
Ive been researching mortgage/foreclosure fraud for the past 3 ½ years and filed suit against my mortgage servicer. The trial is presently scheduled for May of this year.