by PJ on 9/02/2008 01:53:00 PM

Ever since the FHASecure program was first rolled out last year, it's been a moving target political hot potato, with Administration types changing the definition of the program to tout "success," and still others questioning why the goalposts had to be moved in order for the kicker to hit a field goal. (I'm not going to spend this week linking gratuitously to HW, but for those needing a background, you might want to read this.)

Today, we get an update on the heels of a Friday press statement from U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Steve Preston, who touted that FHASecure had helped 325,000 American families refinance into affordable mortgages.

Only problem is that most weren't troubled, and nearly none were severely delinquent -- which, you'll recall, was the stated purpose of the program when it was first announced. Via Forbes:

Since late September of last year, just 1.2%, or 3,911, of the loans refinanced by the FHA, which is part of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), were made to borrowers in default, FHA data shows. This is far below what the government had forecast. The reason: Despite the hoopla about FHA helping borrowers in default, in reality, they only opened the window a crack.

So while the FHA refinanced 324,184 loans so far this year, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the program stopped a wave of would-be foreclosures.

IMF's Guy Cecala pretty much echoes what we've been saying for months now: that FHASecure was nothing but a PR stunt.

“The deal is that true FHASecure delinquent loan refinance activity has been so low that HUD decided to call all of its refinance business FHASecure,” says Cecala. “In theory, the program could be expanded to accommodate more delinquent borrowers without loosening underwriting or taking on any more risk, but HUD and the Bush Administration has been reluctant to do so."

“FHASecure was a PR-driven program created to show that the Bush Administration wasn’t ignoring the mortgage crisis," says Cecala.