I just finished watching a video by Kevin Kauffman and his team. They called Bank Of America and asked one of there employees about the program, their training, and who would qualify for the HAFA program. While this information may be valuable to a Realtor, the program has little to no value to any consumer and you'll see why soon. It's like the government is playing some sort of shadow game with the public.
This particular program was created to streamline the short sale process and to help distressed homeowners sell their homes before going into foreclosure. You see, once the foreclosure process starts your credit is scarred. This means that people with foreclosures on their credit history will be out of the home buying market for a number of years. A short sale does affect a persons credit score, but not nearly as bad as a foreclosure. I've actually blogged about a few short sale success stories that I've heard. The government created this program to provide relief to the public, but the problem is hardly anyone will qualify. Do you see what's happening??
The government has created more than one program that is supposed to serve a particular function to the general public, especially distressed home owners. All the while they are creating programs that the majority of the population can't qualify for, BUT they're trying. See they put out these programs to appease the people, and the people are happy, except for the fact that IT DOESN'T HELP ANYONE. These are phantom programs are designed simply to make the government look good.
So here are some facts to back up my rant:
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae, FHA, VA, and some private lenders ARE NOT PARTICIPATING in the program. For those of you that don't know this is probably 70%+ of the loans out there right now.
You have to be 60 days late on your payments
The STREAMLINED process is going to be "much better" at about 4 months. This is way too long, the process might be acceptable at 3 weeks, but I think the general real estate population would prefer 2.
Home has to be a primary residence, with a loan amount less than 749,000 for a single family. This value does increment up as the numbers of units increases up to 4 units (it becomes commercial over 4 units).
If you were expecting the Obama administration and government to help you out of your property, think again. This program has little to no value to any home owner trying to avoid foreclosure. It's probably not even worth your time to make the phone call to see if you qualify. Relief....yeah right.
Final Thoughts: The banks must be making so much money because of foreclosure and short sale agreements with the FDIC (our money) that there is little to no motivation to streamline anything. They are doing just fine holding distressed homeowners hostage that they'll continue to make the public suffer while they stuff their pockets full of tax payer dollars. Why else would most of the investors that hold loans not want to participate in this programs. The simple fact is that the banks don't have empathy for the public, they operate a business, and businesses don't have emotion.
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