Frustrated Home Owners, Lenders Clash Over Obama Program

Tags

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan, Hope for Homeowners, Mortgages, obama

Many Michigan homeowners contacted the Free Press throughout the day today with word that lenders and loan servicing companies seemed to lack an understanding of what the Obama plan hoped to accomplish. Some were told they were not eligible when, under the guidelines, it appeared they might be; others were told that since they’d already gotten a loan modification earlier, they wouldn’t be able to get another – a premise the Treasury Department flatly denied to the Free Press on today.

Kenya Brown, a 39-year-old foster care worker for the state, got a previous modification through Countrywide and was told Wednesday she wouldn’t be eligible for another under the new program. Meanwhile, she’s spending about half her monthly income on a $115,000 home in Harper Woods with a $146,000 note on it.

The lender’s comment notwithstanding, she’s going to keep at it – calling regularly in hopes of getting her loan modified so she can pay less each month.

“It’s getting to the point where I’m getting desperate,” she said.

Countrywide’s owner – Bank of America – said Wednesday it intended to take part in the modification program – at least as much as its contractual obligations would allow it to do so. Many other loan servicing companies did so as well.

LINK

Everytime I hear this, I think of the telephone call I received from a neighbor one night.  I was working late, doing a marathon and a neighbor called me and said “I need your opinion on something.  I got a call today from this lady who told me that she could help me get a house.  She said that all I needed to do was give her my social security number.  What do you think?”

My response to my neighbor was this.  “You do not work.  You have never worked.  How are you going to pay for this house?  She then asked me again, “What do you think? Should I give her my social security number?”  My response was a resounding “HELL NO!”

To be honest, it was not my neighbor but a very young, streetsmart yet stupid niece of mine.  I just did not want to admit that I had someone with that mentality in my family, but decided to because we all have one.  After all this is America.  However, to her credit, this was the one time she actually listened.  I found later that the caller was a woman who worked for….you guessed it….ACORN.

Clearly the woman in this article is in over her head and just as clear is the fact that she should never have purchased a home in the first place.  I might be wrong, but I suspect ACORN had a hand in this sale somewhere along the line.  I also suspect that she voted for Obama under the false premise that he was going to help her out of this dilemma.  Another Obama lie.

Obama with all his promises will do nothing for people in this type of situation.  It is unfortunate because this debt will not go away.

Michigan’s unemployment rate jumped to 11.6% in January

THE RISK FROM UNDERWATER HOMEOWNERS

Tags

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan, Hope for Homeowners, Mortgages, obama

Obama’s $75 billion mortgage rescue plan doesn’t address the danger that more homeowners whose equity has evaporated might just walk away

The Obama Administration’s $75 billion homeowner-rescue plan offers a lot of help to people in imminent danger of losing their homes. It does far less for those who are deep underwater on their mortgages but have the wherewithal to keep making their monthly payments. And that could be a problem-not only for those homeowners themselves, but for the banking system and the economy in general.

Here’s the dilemma: Many homeowners owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, and-rightly or wrongly-increasing numbers of them may decide to give up and mail in the keys. The taboo against reneging on debts already shows signs of fading in hard-hit markets like Phoenix and Las Vegas. More abandonments would increase losses for lenders while damaging the vitality of neighborhoods.

There’s not much in the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan announced on Feb. 18 to deal with this looming problem. Provisions to reduce monthly loan payments for homeowners who are struggling don’t prevent these so-called “voluntary foreclosures,” since in many cases the payments already are affordable. The most effective way to keep underwater homeowners from walking away en masse would be a big writedown of the principal they owe. That would give them positive equity in their homes-or at least the hope for it once prices begin creeping upward again-and with it, a reason to stay put. Although the Obama plan permits principal writedowns-and even pays off up to $5,000 of principal for homeowners who remain current on their payments-they aren’t required, or even central to the proposal….

….Coasts Hit the Worst

Moreover, “private-label” mortgages that lack Fannie or Freddie’s backing-particularly in California and the Northeast, where home prices are higher and subprime mortgages more common-aren’t eligible for Fannie and Freddie refis at all. “Where the markets have been hardest hit on the coasts, where private mortgages are the biggest, this program won’t really help,” says a fixed-income portfolio manager for a major mutual-fund management firm.

The senior Administration official said the 105% cap seemed advisable in part because re-default rates tend to rise with high loan-to-value ratios. And the government excluded private-label loans from the refinancing program because it little or no authority to dictate rate changes where government-affiliated entities don’t provide guarantees.

Obama’s plan is broader and stronger than Hope for Homeowners, the unwieldy, mostly voluntary program passed by Congress last summer. On the other hand, that’s not saying a lot. Hope for Homeowners has refinanced a microscopic 25 mortgage loans so far. Even a thousandfold improvement over that would still constitute failure for the Obama Administration. That’s why this plan may require some changes in the months ahead.

LINK