Reaction by Denver experts to President Barack Obama's foreclosure prevention program ran the gamut, with some deriding it, others praising it and some believing it needs to be fine-tuned.

The $275 billion housing program, announced Wednesday, includes cutting mortgage payments for as many as 9 million struggling homeowners and expanding Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's roles in curbing foreclosures.

"Quite frankly, the more the government meddles with this, the worse they are going to make this," said Ron Woodcock, a broker with RE/MAX Southeast.

Rather than a massive bailout, he said the solution is a better economy with higher-paying jobs.

But Mike Rosser, a longtime mortgage broker who is co-chairman of the state's foreclosure task force, said the Obama plan seems "workable."

Rosser said he knows there is a "moral hazard" in helping homeowners who are either in or facing foreclosure, when about 90 percent of the people are paying their mortgages on time.

"But the reality is what this does is stabilize neighborhoods, allows people to keep their homes and protects people current on their payments by putting a floor under house prices," Rosser said.

"What we have got to do is triage these problem loans and start moving to help people," he added. "The idea is that if you recognize the lender is going to lose 25 percent to 40 percent on every property when it is liquidated as a foreclosure, you have to motivate them to lose less by modifying loans and other measures to keep people in their homes."

Anita Padilla-Fitzgerald, owner of MegaStar Financial, one of the largest privately held mortgage bankers in Denver, doesn't like loan modifications, though she approves of other parts of the proposal.

Padilla-Fitzgerald has founded a group called American Citizens for Economic Stabilization, which proposes alternatives such as allowing the government to provide second mortgages and strengthen banks' balance sheets by getting bad loans off the books.

"I do think the government is on the right track," she said.

Sarah Hayes of Colorado Investors Real Estate/Metro Brokers, said she thinks banks should have been modifying loans for homeowners in trouble years ago, and she is angry that Obama's plan appears to subsidize bank losses on bank loans.

"We're going to pay the banks that got us into this mess?" she said. "I was just floored by that. Ultimately, we're going to be using taxpayer money to pay someone else's mortgage."

rebchookj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5207