Links to Useful Government Sites

You may have heard the President Obama signed the Making Home Affordable legislation this year. In short there are two parts to the plan. If your 1st mortgage is backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, the act provides for affordable refinancing of your existing loan. That means that they make a new loan and take out the old one all together.

Making Home Affordable offers to help borrowers who are already behind on their mortgage payments or who are struggling to keep their loans current. By providing mortgage servicers with financial incentives to modify existing first mortgages, the Treasury hopes to help as many as 3 to 4 million homeowners avoid foreclosure regardless of who owns or services the mortgage.

To apply for a Home Affordable Modification, you must:

• Be an owner-occupant in a one to four unit property,
• An unpaid principal balance that is equal to or less than $729,750 (for one unit properties and higher for two to four unit properties (consult your servicer),
• A loan that was originated before January 1, 2009,
• A mortgage payment (including taxes, insurance, and home owners association dues) that is more than 31% of your gross (pre-tax) monthly income and
• Have a mortgage payment that is no longer affordable, perhaps because of a significant change in income or expenses.

Home Affordable Modification
http://makinghomeaffordable.gov/modification_eligibility.html
Eligible borrowers who are current on their mortgages but have been unable to take advantage of today’s lower interest rates because their homes have decreased in value, may now have the opportunity to refinance into a 30 or 15 year, fixed rate loan. Through the Home Affordable Refinance program, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will allow the refinancing of mortgage loans that they own or that they placed in mortgage backed securities.

To apply for a Home Affordable Refinance, you must:
• Be an owner occupant of a one to four unit home.
• The loan on your home is owned or controlled by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac
• You are current on your mortgage payments (current means that you haven’t been more than 30-days late on your mortgage payment in the last 12 months.)
• You believe that the amount you owe on your first mortgage is about the same or slightly less than the current value of your house, and
• You have a stable income sufficient to support the new mortgage payments.

Home Affordable Refinance
http://makinghomeaffordable.gov/refinance_eligibility.html
Treasury is providing incentives to your investor to write the interest down as low as 2%, if necessary to get to a payment that you can afford based on your income.

If a 2% interest rate does not result in a payment that is affordable (31% of your gross monthly income), your servicer will:
• First try to extend your payment term. At the servicer’s option your payments could be extended out to 40 years.
• If that is still not sufficient your servicer will defer repayment on a portion of the amount you owe until a later time. This is called a principal forbearance.
• A portion of the debt could also be forgiven. This is optional on the part of the investor. There is no requirement for principal forgiveness.

As contracts with servicers and investors are signed, the list of participants will be posted at www.financialstability.gov. Borrowers should first check there to see if their servicer is listed. If so, you should call your servicer back and ask to speak to a supervisor or you may contact a HUD-approved housing counselor for assistance. If your servicer is not participating in the program, you should ask your servicer or a housing counselor about other workout options that may be available.
If you find that you do not quality or have been in negotiations with your lender for more than 45 days without results contact us at www.KingCountyHomeSolutions.com  to seek other alternatives.  If you are behind on your payments your lender is likely to proceed with the foreclosure process even though you are communicating with them. To see where you are at in the process of foreclosure click here. It is important to keep an eye on the lenders foreclosure progress in order to avail yourself of other solutions like short sales.  If you are less than 4 weeks to the foreclosure sale date you must take immediate action. If you do not know what your date is call, text, email or twitter us your address and we will look it up for you.

We are committed to helping you avoid the loss of your home through foreclosure. We are ready to put 23 years of real estate experience and extensive training to work for you.

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