UPDATE 1-US should help more homeowners -Treasury official

While she stopped short of offering any new proposals, Mary Miller, assistant Treasury secretary, said low interest rates created room for greater action in housing, which has been at the epicenter of the struggling U.S. economy.”The housing crisis has been long and painful, and there’s still more work to be done,” Miller said in remarks prepared for deliver to the CFA Institute in Boston.She said the Obama administration “is interested in reviewing all of the barriers to refinancing” loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac , the government-owned mortgage finance providers, in order to assist more homeowners realize savings.Any changes to the existing Home Affordable Refinance Program should not cause investors in mortgage bonds to get cold feet, she said. May investors have worried they could take a hit.”The terms of the HARP program have been known to the market since program inception, and should not introduce new issues,” Miller said.Investors in these securities have already enjoyed a much longer holding period than historical prepayment levels might have allowed, she added.Miller also addressed an initiative that housing regulators have floated to rent, sell or dispose of foreclosed homes controlled by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.”We think there is an opportunity to address the backlog of unsold homes by creating a process for moving real estate owned by the government to new private owners, with a particular interest in creating rental options,” Miller said.The Federal Housing Finance Agency put out a request for information to solicit the best ideas on how to accomplish sales of foreclosed homes to perhaps turn them into rental properties back in August. About 4,000 comment letters were received, Miller said.”Clearly there is interest here, and we look forward to supporting the FHFA as they move ahead,” she said.