The president’s Making Homes Affordable program will expand to help more borrowers who are underwater. Initially, the program was aimed at borrowers whose mortgages did not exceed 105 percent of the house’s value. As housing prices continue to decline, more and more borrowers find they do not qualify for mortgage modifications under the program. The administration has decided to change the eligibility requirements so that borrowers whose mortgages do not exceed 125 percent of the house’s value can participate. This could make as many as 2 million more borrowers eligible to modify their mortgages.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/01/AR2009070102063.html
This Washington Post article is a follow-up to other articles that have described the administration’s Making Homes Affordable program. The lede, therefore, concentrates on the modifications to the program rather than the program itself. The second graf gives the administration’s justification for modifying the program.
The writing was clear, easy to understand.
The article includes three quotes, two giving justifications for the modification and one explaining why it wasn’t done sooner. These quotes do help by indicating who is involved in this decision: Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Steve O'Connor, senior vice president of government affairs at the Mortgage Bankers Association. So, the quotes are good in that they explain the program modification.
However, one might also think that there is no ‘balance’ in the article, no information and no quotes indicating that there may be reasons not to make this modification.
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(The lack of embedded links = nine instead of 10 points.)