HARP refinancings, based on FHFA data, skyrocketed in 2012, with refinancings in November showing particular growth.

The government’s Home Affordable Refinance Program, or HARP, started out as a terrific punchline. Though sincere in its aims, the program was saddled with overly restrictive requirements for the nation’s troubled borrowers, and very few were able to take advantage of the program and refinance their mortgages.

All of that changed, though, in the fall of 2011, when the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which oversees HARP, instituted a number of desperately needed revisions to the program’s requirements, including: the elimination of the program’s 125 percent LTV ceiling; waiving representations/warranties that lenders had to commit when making loans guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac; and most significantly, extending HARP’s deadline until the end of 2013 for all loans sold to GSEs on or before May 31, 2009.

And what’s the end result been, from those changes? After studying some data from the FHFA, we put an infographic together with the most valuable stats: