Florida is dealing with a record number of foreclosures, and many homeowners are looking to the Making Home Affordable Refinance and Loan Modification program as a way to help them avoid this fate.
When the program was first announced in February, it had two main objectives:
To help financially-needy homeowners get mortgage relief
To help homeowners who've lose equity qualify for today's low rates
Amidst high anticipation, the
U.S. Treasury issued a press release providing some new details about the Making Home Affordable program. It also created an "
Am I Eligible For Making Home Affordable" form on its website.
In the press release, the Treasury detailed the President's original blueprint: To provide explicit loan modification instructions for assisting as many as 4 million delinquent homeowners and their respective mortgage servicers.
As is often the case with any such government effort, the documentation for Making Home Affordable is some 17 pages long. Luckily, it provides detail to merit its length - as the document's text leaves very little question about the loan modification process and how it must be administered.
But for all this detail, the document fails to lay out in clear fashion a plan of action for the nearly 5 million homeowners for whom deteriorating home equity has rendered refinancing impossible.
For these Americans, the Treasury instead offers a basic Q&A and directs homeowners to call Fannie Mae and/or Freddie Mac to confirm their eligibility. The "refinance plan," in short, says that a homeowner who has paid his mortgage as agreed and whose home value is "about the same or less" as the amount owed on his first mortgage may be eligible.
That's about as much as the Treasury will offer up. Clear as mud, right?
If after browsing the website, you still have questions about the Making Home Affordable program, call your mortgage lender with specific questions.
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It's hard to be eligible for the Making Home Affordable program, but for those who qualify it's gonna be a heaven-sent. Part of the reason why I'm not fully convinced of this program is that not all who need help will get help, and so many Americans need to save their homes before they end up on the streets or in tent cities.
- Imee