What It Means to You
When losing your home is unavoidable, a short sale is preferable to a foreclosure. Although it still affects your credit report, it is not as bad as a foreclosure. If you are upside in your loan, consider this program.(Finance, Unable to Stem Foreclosures, May 15, 2009)The Making Home Affordable Initiative is designed to help homeowners before they get behind in their payments. Most banks won't allow a loan modification until the borrower misses three payments. It provides a $1,000 a year principle payment for borrowers who stay current on their payments. It also helps borrowers who are upside down in their mortgages. Most banks won't refinance a mortgage unless the amount owed is less than 80% of the total value of the home. This doesn't help homeowners who have seen the value of their home plummet below the mortgage level. The government will help subsidize the cost to banks of reducing the size of the mortgage. The program will be paid for out of TARP funds.
To see if you qualify, go to Makinghomeaffordable.gov.
Comments
It doesn’t matter if you qualify, TONS of people qualify. The banks simply won’t do it. Apparently it’s not profitable enough for them. Supposedly this program was designed to help 400,000 people… it’s actually helped about 50. It’s a publicity stunt and a scam, not a solution.
I’m just one example: Wife lost her career. Had a 24wk preemie with serious health issues. Lost our car, have no savings left. But in spite of that, we stayed current and never missed a single payment, desperately trying to keep our home despite the horrible 20yr / 7.125% loan… would Wells Fargo help us? We qualify in every way for this Making Home Affordable program- a Mannie Mae loan, owing less than 105% of value, lived here two years…
Nope.
According to them, we don’t qualify because we have mortgage insurance. We haven’t paid them enough yet, I guess. Now we’re forced to walk away from our home next month. No other options left.
I’m not the only one. Check forums, discussion groups, comments on other websites. This farce is slowly being shown for what it is.
So thanks a ton, Obama. HOPE no one makes the mistake of voting for you next time. The only CHANGE I see is instead of just not helping, you’re pretending you are.
What’s with the lenders?? Specifically WELLS FARGO!
As soon as the “Making Home Affordable” plan was announced – my wife and I jumped for joy. She has been unimployed since December,2008 and to say we have been struggling is TOO polite. We filed with Wells Fargo on the 16th of March 2009 and have been getting the run-around and the shaft since that date. We have been sent on a mindless paper chase by WF, laughed at and hung-up on while getting basic information about the process, and been given the “oh, it’s you again!” treatment everytime I call. And I do call at least every 7-10 days, as they suggested.
This Loan Modification inititative is a joke! I don’t know who if anyone is getting any mortgage assistance from Wells Fargo – but it certainly isn’t us. If the reported success-rate in terms of getting assistance is roughly only 4%–then shame on Wells Fargo and double-shame on Obama for making us hope and believe that this could really happen. It’s all a sham, a joke and Wells Fargo will be laughing all the way to the bank and my wife and I lose everything.
This sucks !
My point exactly, as I said last week in Banks Must Stop Record Foreclosures
I don’t blame the Obama Administration – they are trying to do the right thing. They have steadfastly come up with one innovative program after another. In fact, government initiatives are the only thing propping the economy up.
What are we to do?
We must face facts and do what Americans do best – adapt. We haven’t had to do this in a long time, but it is about returning to basic values and muddling through.
For more on this, see
Waking Up from the American Dream
Kimberly
I was accepted in the the trail of Obama plan. After I completed the program and made all the payments, GMAC denied my application to modify the loan. Then they called to threatened foreclosure if I don’t pay up. Worst yet, they threatened to send maintenance workers to change my locks of my home. I just gave up and moved out.
I am so sorry. Once the program is turned over to GMAC, is there anyone in the government you can turn to?
Anyone else have experience with this program? I may interview someone from the government to ask about these situations.
Kimberly
My wife and I had our third child in 2006. He required lots of therapy after being born at 29 weeks. This required much of of our time so our income dropped significantly. Haven’t paid on our upside down mortgage for 12 months and got notice of sale in Aug of 2009. Chase wouldn’t modify our loan after applying twice. We thought the Obama plan would help us but we didn’t qualify.
After going back and forth with lender via an attorney we still got nowhere. Fortunately, we found someone who helped us stay in our home by bypassing the lender without paying the mortgage. We are still in home and trying to save up money and not change schools, disrupt everything until we have better options.
We have friends who are headed for the same crisis and the banks don’t seem to be interested at all in helping people in any meaningful way. I think it is very short sighted on their part. If the middle class shrinks or disappears isn’t it going to affect them badly, too?
Question: is it possible to get into a new home by taking over someone’s mortgage if they are in trouble? Now, our credit is ruined and getting a mortgage on our own is impossible. What are our options if we don’t want to rent?
Al