Making Home Affordable Website Answers Consumer Questions

Making Home Affordable Website Answers Consumer Questions

Uncle Sam gets an A+ for the new website released last week to promote the details of President Obama's Making Home Affordable Program. Now it is very easy to see if you qualify for the programs just by going to the website at www.MakingHomeAffordable.gov and exploring the handy interactive self-assessment tools, calculators, and lists of helpful resources.

On March 19, 2009, the .U.S Department of the Treasury and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) launched the new website two weeks after releasing guidelines to lenders on March 4. Representatives from the Treasury, Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and an interagency task force met with mortgage loan services, investors, nonprofit housing counselors, and representatives of borrower advocacy groups to prepare them to implement the program. Lenders have been scurrying to train their personnel, update their websites, and reach out to potential applicants.

The website prominently notes that the program is free to participants. As noted right here in this blog, foreclosure scams are big business these days. There is no need to pay any money to anyone to see if you qualify and get help. If you don't qualify, the website points you to free resources to help you find alternatives. (Remember, none of those resources advertise on telephone poles or on infomercials at 4 am.)

The Making Home Affordable program aims to help two groups of homeowners who are making a good faith effort to stay in their homes:

• Borrowers who want to refinance but are unable to because the value of their home has fallen.

• Borrowers who cannot make their mortgage payments because their interest rate has increased or their income has fallen.

When homeowners come to the user-friendly site, they choose which program they are applying for, answer a few simple questions, and immediately receive an answer as to whether they may qualify. The criteria are the same for all.

Those who qualify are directed to their lender or mortgage servicer and provided with a checklist of documents they will need when they call the lender. Those who do not meet program qualifications are urged to contact their mortgage servicer or a HUD-approved counselor.

In the near future, the site will include a list of lenders who are participating in the program. For now, it contains a mortage calculator to determine what the new payment could be at 31% of their come and many helpful multi-media tools to encourage homeowners to take a look at the program whch is expected to help nine million homeowners.

We have our own version of Make Home Affordable here at Exit Real Estate Results. We sell affordable Central Florida homes!