Need Mortgage Refinance

First thing you need to know is that the ‘Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternative’ is an additional element to the making home affordable program that offers alternative foreclosure avoidance options. These options come in the form of a Short Sale option and a Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure option.

Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternative via a Short Sale

This is where your property is sold for less than the value of the outstanding amount left on your mortgage. In other words once the property is sold you would normally still have an amount of money left owing which you would still need to pay. But in the HAFA program this amount is written off by the lender so you never have to pay the outstanding amount. This is providing the lender agrees to the sale terms prior to putting the house on the market.

The mortgage is effectively settled in full using the funds raised in the sale, even though it is less than the outstanding amount owed.

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The program came into being to provide a temporary period where monthly mortgage payments are reduced or suspended when a homeowner becomes unemployed. Your lender will need to be a participating servicer in the ‘HAMP’ program.

Eligibility:

• The mortgage loan needs to be secured by a 1 to 4 unit property where at least one of the units is your primary residence
• The mortgage is a first lien mortgage which was taken out before the 1st January 2009
• The unpaid primary balance of the loan must be equal to or less than
  * 1 Unit: $729,750
  * 2 Units: $934,200
  * 3 Units: $1,129,250
  * 4 Units: $1,403,400
• The current unpaid balance of the primary loan must be equal to or less than $729,750
• The mortgage must already be delinquent, i.e. you have defaulted on one or more payments or it is reasonably obvious you are about to become delinquent
• The mortgage loan has not already been modified through the ‘HAMP’ program and you have not already received help through the ‘UP’ program
• You have to contact your lender before missing 3 full mortgage payments, once you have missed 3 full payments, you will no longer be eligible
• You actually have to be unemployed to apply to ‘UP’ and be able to provide documented evidence that you will receive unemployment benefit in the month the temporary period of relief becomes effective
• Your lender might decide that have to have been on benefits for up to 3 months before your temporary period of mortgage relief can begin

A few extra facts

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There have been some new initiatives creeping into the Home Affordable Modification Program which you should generally be aware of, especially if you are facing foreclosure or have recently faced unemployment or even worse been made unemployed.

So first of all, what does HAMP mean to anyone facing foreclosure when their lender has decided to participate in the Home Affordable Modification Program.

Any mortgage provider who participates in the Home Affordable Modification Program cannot refer a loan for a foreclosure sale, or take action on a foreclosure sale for loans that are eligible for the program until the mortgage holder/homeowner has been evaluated for HAMP, and if the homeowner is eligible a trial modification offer has been made.

So once a mortgage servicer participates in the HAMP program they are obliged to make reasonable efforts to get in touch with any homeowners entering the foreclosure stage i.e. the stage where they would previously have been progressed to foreclosure, to find out if they are eligible for the program. This could include personal contact with a homeowner, but that is at the discretion of the lender and is more likely to be in the form of a letter.

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How to Repair Your Credit – The Secrets of Success
By Chris Jollife

How to repair your credit is a question asked by thousands of people around the world every day. There are several secrets to successfully raising your credit rating, it is a job that you can do yourself if you follow a good plan.

In this article on how to repair your credit we will look at the secrets of success that you need to use in order to get your credit score back where it belongs. We will look at getting a copy of your credit report and disputing any errors, paying your bills on time and the mindset necessary for successful credit repair. After reading this article you should have a good chance of success in raising your FICO score.

The first secret of success is to apply to the three credit bureaus for a copy of your credit report. The three credit bureaus are Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. They are obliged to provide you with a copy of your credit report for free once each year. If you find any errors in your credit report then you need to dispute them by sending a dispute letter with any supporting evidence to the credit bureaus. So far so good, what else do you need to do to repair your credit?

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The numbers, as expected, continue to rise and the information released through April 2010 is that almost 300,000 borrowers have now been granted permanent home loan mortgage modifications. The median for payment reduction is still sitting around 36% which is, in real money, a saving of about $500 per month. This is the same as was reported on the last press release. The big change is really the number of borrowers converting to permanent home loan mortgage modifications with over 68,000 converting during April which is 13% more than in March.

There are some rule changes that new applicants should be aware of which actually come into effect on June 1st. Servicers now require upfront documentation before they can initiate new trial modifications and in practice that means they have been making that request since March 2010. The treasury is monitoring service performance to ensure the borrower demand is met and that modification requests are reviewed in a timely manner. This contradicts most reports from real people on this aspect of the HAMP service where the biggest complaints have been of slow responses and lost paperwork.

Servicers are stating that the most common causes of cancellations include missed trial payments and incomplete or unverifiable documentation. So you can see that getting the documentation in up front for verification should improve the efficiency of the service and ensure eligibility before the process is initiated. As for missed payments, well that is why this criteria was introduced, people have to demonstrate that they can meet the new payments before a permanent loan modification is offered.

There are statistics now available that show servicers who started trials with verified documents generally posted higher conversion rates. This is as opposed to accepting stated incomes, i.e. those that relied on the borrower to disclose their income and didn’t verify the accuracy of those statements before starting the process of loan modification. The figures for the 4 largest servicers using stated income as a basis for trial starts is a less than 30% conversion rate.

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Loan Modification Help With HAMP – Secrets to Getting Approved For a Loan Modification in 30 Days

By Jake Worthington

President Obama has directed lenders to speed up the review process for loan mod programs under HAMP (Home Affordable Modification Program). While homeowners are struggling to avoid foreclosure, it seems most lenders were not reviewing their customers applications as efficiently as they should. Finding loan modification help with HAMP has become easier due to the emergence of many online services offering their expertise for homeowners looking for help in dealing with the paperwork and dealing with their lenders.

There has been an alarming rate of failure under the HAMP program and studies have shown that this was due to the increased amount of time it was talking lenders to review and approve the applications being made by their customers who had met the requirements to file under this program. Some families complained that their lenders offer no loan modification help with HAMP and others claimed they had successfully made an application under this program but that their lender was not approving their loan mod in time for them to avoid foreclosure of their family’s home.

I must advise, those of you who are not familiar with this process should find a free consultation offer and discuss your specific, individual financial circumstances with an expert who has experience dealing with the loan modification programs. Loan modification help with HAMP is available to anyone looking to be guided through the process and getting professional assistance could not only speed up the process, but also help to get your application approved. Having an expert on your side experienced enough to get your application approved and knowledgeable enough to speak to your lender on your behalf is the smartest move you could make.

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One of the first things to consider when you want to make a property purchase is exactly how much you can afford to pay out, in total, on a monthly basis for a home loan mortgage. This sounds fairly straight forward and it is, as long as you actually consider all the costs involved.

It is much easier for someone who has actually gone through the process of either making their first purchase or have managed to arrange a home loan mortgage refinance; because they will at least have a reference back to the costs they incurred along the way. But if you are in the situation of being a first time buyer there are a few things you need to think about, because if you do not know about certain costs you may be forced into a position of borrowing more money than you intended to.

So what are the costs involved when taking out a home loan mortgage:

• Application fees
• Loan origination fee
• Home inspection and appraisal costs
• Points, these are paid on a once only basis usually to reduce ongoing interest costs
• Legal fees for the handling of the purchase (and sale if you are selling a previous home)
• Annual property taxes
• Repairs, remember when you own it you fix it
• House and contents insurance, contents you may be used to but now you will need to protect your house against damage or potentially complete loss, a house fire for example

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In asking the question ‘where do banks get their money from’ you can gain an understanding into why mortgage interest rates at some point in time will have to rise. The reason is because they primarily get their money from savers, people who work hard, take care of their finances and want to invest their money for a healthy return i.e. reasonable interest payments.

What the banks do in simplistic terms is that they take the money invested by savers and they pay interest on the amount of money invested that is lower than the interest they receive from the loans they make. Obviously there are other ways the banks get returns on the money they hold, investing in stocks and shares is another obvious example.

So what the banks do with the money, in a nutshell, is to take risks with it in order to earn more from it than they pay out in interest to people who save with them.

Following on from this statement you can get a feel for how the banks reached a point of financial crises and how the whole economy of the world was put at risk. It was because they got greedy, took too many risks and lent money to too many people who were not capable or didn’t intend to repay the loans. It was done to such an extent that they got themselves into a situation that was irrecoverable without government intervention and a bail out on a massive scale funded by tax payers.

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So many people want to predict where the mortgage rates are going. After all, even a single percentage point of movement in mortgage rates can and will affect other rates in the market, not to mention possibly lead another family to the brink of becoming homeless.

Unfortunately, predicting mortgage requires a crystal ball, a third eye and a magic wand, all of which no human being has yet to possess. Still, you can predict with a certain degree of accuracy where mortgage rates are headed. You just need to learn how to study trends, correlate two things and be observant of the economy.

Factors to Consider

It must be emphasized that mortgage companies have their own ways with which to set individual rates. However, they tend to stick to similar sets of factors when considering their rates, which you can also use to predict where said rates are headed.

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The numbers are still going up with the latest figures on the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) now stating that more than 170,000 permanent modifications have been passed on to homeowners. This means they are guaranteed lower payments for the next 5 years and the average saving per month is still sitting at around $500 dollars (36% saving on before modification payments) giving a cumulative saving of around $2.7 billion.

The number of permanent modifications that have been approved by the servicers but are still waiting to be accepted by the borrowers has also risen to 91,800 from the previously reported figure of 76,000. The number of homeowners that have received offers for trial modifications is still around the 1.3 million mark which is around 34 to 45% of the final goal which needs to be reached by the end of 2012. A further 72,000 trial modifications commenced in February.

The cancellation figures are pretty low, for modifications converted to a permanent status only 0.9% have been canceled and for all modifications started the number is 8.2%.

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