Obama administration officials are struggling to reach consensus on a future path for mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, unable to agree on whether the government should provide a guarantee for new mortgages when the market stabilizes, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The matter is becoming urgent because of a looming January deadline for the Treasury Department to produce recommendations to Congress for revamping the nation's system of housing finance.

If the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has its way, federal regulators would not wait for Congress to create national servicing standards, but instead write such rules as part of risk retention guidelines set to be released soon.

The agency's idea has divided the banking agencies, with the Federal Reserve Board and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency arguing risk retention is not the place for new servicing standards.

Many people facing foreclosure have successfully made the trial mortgage modification payments required of them, but they've been unable to get their banks to make the modifications permanent. For example, California homeowner Marvin Galvin and family made 14 monthly trial payments to JPMorgan Chase, totaling some $30,000, before receiving notice last week that their house would be sold in foreclosure. The sale is set for Jan. 7

Here's a closer look at their stories, which share key features, and at some of the obstacles — beyond too few competent staff at the banks — to getting successful trial modifications converted.

FCI Lender Services, Anaheim Hills, Calif., the largest servicer of "private money" loans, said it is adding a new private money lender to its servicing base about every two days or so.

"Private money continues to move into the area left open by the institutional lenders who aren't lending," said FCI executive vice president Gordon Albrecht.

The ranks of the appraisal profession are shrinking fast. For home lenders, that spells higher costs, longer turnaround times and poorer appraisal quality in future years.

While there's less appraisal work to go around these days than there was a few years ago at the height of the housing market boom, lenders fear that when the market does rebound, there won't be enough qualified appraisers available to do the job for them.

A dwindling appraiser population would lead to an "absence of local expertise," said Kurt Noyce, the chief executive of the Providence, R.I., lender Embrace Home Loans.

An elaborate scheme promising help for struggling homeowners targeted dozens of Sacramento-area Russian families, a News10 investigation has revealed.

A search of property records in Sacramento, Placer, El Dorado and Yolo Counties shows roughly 50 Russian families and individuals deeded their homes in 2008 and 2009 to an organization called "Shon-Te-East-A Walks with Spirit" in an attempt to reduce or eliminate their mortgage payments.

Many of the homes are now in various stages of foreclosure or have already been lost.