Homeowner Options
These are the options that may be available to you as a part of the Financial Stability Plan:
- Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP): A Home Affordable Modification is designed to provide homeowners with mortgage payments they can afford. Many homeowners who are struggling to make their monthly mortgage payments because of an interest rate increase or some other hardship such as a divorce, separation, illness, loss of income, reduction of income or a variety of other factors may be eligible to modify their mortgage payments so that they can remain in their homes and avoid foreclosure.
- Home Affordable Refinancing Program (HARP): This program is designed for homeowners who are current on their mortgage payment but would like to refinance into the lower interest rates that are currently available but may be unable to refinance due to a drop in the value of their home. This program is for homeowners whose loans are held with Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
- Forbearance: The “forbearance” gives a borrower an opportunity to pay only a portion of their regular mortgage payment or pay no monthly mortgage payment for a period of time specified by the lender. This program depends upon the current financial status of the borrower. At the end of the specified forbearance time frame, regular mortgage payments will commence with an additional amount to be paid to make up for any unpaid interest and principal as well as any past due amounts. Be warned however, most borrowers who opt for this plan will go into foreclosure and ultimately lose their home because the new mortgage payments become unaffordable.
- Repayment Plan: If a borrower has missed monthly mortgage payments, their lender may be assist the borrower in helping create a schedule of payments to repay past-due amounts. Be very careful of this plan as it may cause you to become over extended with your monthly payment obligations and often times results in a foreclosure because the payments are unsustainable.
- Short Sale: If you are unable to sell your home with adequate proceeds to cover your loan amount, the lender may allow you to sell your home on a short sale. This entails the lender allowing you to sell your home for less than the amount owed them. Certain criteria must usually be met including proving your inability to pay your monthly mortgage payments and a proving a decline in value of your home. This process does impact your credit score but usually not as dramatically as a foreclosure.
- Deed-in-lieu of foreclosure: If you have attempted to sell your home and can prove that you were unable to sell in a reasonable amount of time, your lender may provide an option that enables you to deed the property back to them in a voluntary transfer that would avoid the foreclosure proceedings. However, this process will still have an impact on your credit score and is often times not any less damaging than a full foreclosure depending on how your lender reports it to the credit bureaus.
The representatives at National Mortgage Help Center have been successfully helping homeowners modify their mortgages and mitigate their losses since 2003. We have an experienced, compassionate staff that thoroughly understands the processes involved in loss mitigation and loan modification and we work with all major lenders.
We understand how difficult it is to work through the maze of information available to you today and we take the guesswork out of how to do a loan modification successfully. We can discuss your options with you to see if you will be eligible for any of the available programs in an effort to save your home.
Contact an Advocate today to see how we can be of help to you or Apply Now to see if you are eligible for a loan modification.
