Home Affordable Mortgage

There is a huge need for mortgage assistance amidst a growing population of homeowners in financial hardship. This need has not been over looked.

There are many government mortgage assistance programs and these efforts only seem to be growing in both number and level of effectiveness.

Below you will find a list of homeowner assistance programs developed to provide homeowners the opportunity to obtain beneficial debt help that enables them to make home affordable.



Home Affordable Mortgage Program List


Home Affordable Refinance

This is the Obama refinance program that allows homeowners to refinance their current mortgage to a home loan with a more favorable and affordable monthly payment

FHA Short Refinance

Allows underwater homeowners to reduce their principle by at least 10% by refinancing.

Second Mortgage Modification

Gives lenders incentives to eliminate second lien mortgage debt.

Home Affordable Modification

This is the Obama loan modification program that allows homeowners in financial hardship to lower their monthly mortgage payment by restructuring the payment terms of their home loan and thus make home affordable. This program allows homeowners to stop foreclosure and overcome mortgage default.

Unemployment Assistance and Modification Program

This government mortgage assistance program allows homeowners who are unemployed to obtain mortgage relief via forbearance and than modification

Obama Foreclosure Alternatives

Provides homeowners who have long term financial hardships that prevent them from being able to keep their home the opportunity to stop foreclosure and walk away with no mortgage debt. Foreclosure alternatives such as a deed in lieu of foreclosure or a short sale are utilized to help these homeowners. Participants are also granted up to 3,000 dollars of foreclosure relocation assistance through the Obama cash for keys program.

Hardest Hit Fund

This program provides billions of dollars to the local housing authorities of states that have been hit the hardest by financial hardship caused by the turmoils of the down economy.

Homeowners Can Stop Foreclosure

Many homeowners are finding themselves staring down the barrel of mortgage default and a looming foreclosure sale. There are a lot of homeowners who think that all hope is lost and that their is nothing that they can do. They feel hopeless. The thoughts of uncertainty are too much for many to deal with.



I have good news for these homeowners stuck amidst the cloud of uncertainty and fear. There is hope for a brighter tomorrow. Homeowners are able to stop foreclosure. There are literally dozens upon dozens of foreclosure solutions available for homeowners who find themselves amidst a financial hardship.


Below I have created a list of some of the most common methods homeowners use to stop foreclosure. Under each label is a brief description as well as links to resources offering further research.


Hang in there. You can stop foreclosure.

How Homeowners Stop Foreclosure

Loan Modification

Loan Modification has become increasingly popular. This debt help solution allows homeowners to lower their monthly mortgage payment.

Mortgage Refinance

Mortgage refinancing will stop foreclosure but has become increasingly difficult but if a mortgage refinance is obtainable it is one of the more favorable mortgage workouts available to Homeowners.

Short Sale

Short Sale is quite common in the world of foreclosure but the homeowner will always lose their home in this situation.

Hard Money Loan

Hard Money Loans are very lucrative for investors if equity has accumulated in the property.


Loan Audit

Loan Audits performed by lawyers in effort to find grounds to legally challenge the lender is a new trend. Many have found success, as the lender will often opt for loan modification at the threat of a lawsuit.


Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy will stop the foreclosure proceedings but generally the Homeowner will eventually lose the home down the road.


Forbearance

The lender often grants a forbearance agreement or a repayment plan to the Homeowner in efforts to retain home ownership.


Home Sale

Selling the home on the open market is a way to stop foreclosure but it is generally a better idea to postpone the sale to relieve the discounting pressure on the sales price of a home when in foreclosure.


These mortgage solutions that allow Homeowners to stop foreclosure are just some of the many mortgage workout options that are available to Homeowners who need to stop foreclosure and save their home.

US Economic Growth... Well Kinda

The United States economy is at a fork in the road. Which way and where it will go? Nobody really knows, even if they don't tell you so.

How to Hedge a Failing US Economy

The finance blogs and finance bloggers of the world have been speaking of a dooms day looming in the not so distant future of the American economy. The really scary part is that they all have strong arguments.


There is a large supply of worry, and perhaps even a larger supply of reasons to be worried about.


In researching the current state of the American economy I had a few moments to think about what would be a good investment.


I asked myself; where should one put their hard earned money?




The Answer will shock you...









I think the most appropriate way to hedge ones portfolio at this point is to invest your time in a garden.


See the thing about this whole situation is that we as a country have messed with things like stimulus, bail outs, zero interest rates, new legislation, more regulations. and the like so much that there is little else to throw at the next unknown problem.


If things go bad again... It won't be because there is a shortage of money. No, It will be because there is no money of any standard or clearly determined value. Our economy will shift back over to the bartering system.


I am just not sure that are economic wheels can take another pot hole, recession, depression, or whatever.


We are already driving this thing with a spare tire (and on "E" thanks to BP).


The way i see it the US is still on track to a recovery, our economy is still growing, the illusion of money is still alive and well. However, there is just not a whole lot of great looking tricks to patch a tire if we catch another flat.


We can hold this thing together as long as everything runs smoothly, or if destiny blesses us with just a bit of luck we should all be just fine and dandy.


 I fear that any sort of bad luck in the near future could really F**k us.


But then again what do I know?


Let's get to the latest numbers that everyone is talking about...



GDP and Economic Growth

Where is The US Economy Going?

Over the last quarter the economy has grown at a rate of 1.6% which doesn't really sound all that bad to me. However original guidance predicted 2.4% which means that estimate fell by about 33%. On the brighter side analyst on wall street were expecting 1.3% so in that respect we are up 20%. I think that the fact that we are growing at all is either a miracle or a damn lie.


Over the last four quarters GDP has averaged 2.9%, The Experts on the matter say that unemployment will only get worst unless we have a GDP growth rate of 3%.


US Consumers



The US Consumer has actually been spending more on everything except for housing. Not to long ago I posted that the housing market was stabilizing but apparently I am a big fat liar.


Housing Numbers

Consumers are Spending - But Not on Housing

From the home sale numbers that have been released I estimate that at the very most in the month of July only 23,000 homes were bought and sold. This is less then an avg of 500 per state though trust me when I say that state home sale numbers differ tremendously. That does not say much for the previously posted story on the housing stability theory.

 In fact you have to go back half a century or so to find home sale numbers that low!

The home sale numbers have droped 33% year over year and they were not doing so well last year as you already know unless you have a world of warcraft account.


On top of that the Make Home Affordable Plan, Obama's mortgage assistance programs, has had fewer and fewer loan modification workouts come through HAMP, the modification program. The Obama modification plan, or more accurately HAMP has been a tremendous success by any comparative measure. But just the same, as of late, the HAMP performance has been a bit sluggish.


However the Obama Plan made an additional Hardest Hit Fund Payment to an additional five states that were hardest hit by the financial crisis.


I believe the foreclosure prevention assistance payout through the Hardest Hit Fund was 600 million dollars. Combining that with the original 1.5 billion dollars that stimulus total adds up to 2.1 billion dollars.

I think Obama is doing an amazing job overall on this side of things. Obama's housing and financial stability efforts have been tremendous.



The US Job Market



The private market is actually still producing new jobs. In July we had 71,000 new private sector work force additions. However the US economy as a whole shed a total of approximately 130,000 jobs.


These job losses were in large part due to the temporary census jobs that have come to an end. In July this number was around 145,000 jobs terminated. In June 225,000 jobs were lost. That is a total of 370,000 paychecks that are no longer going to be spent every other Friday... That is just no good.


But let us not get to hung up on that large and very scary number. The good news is that the private market is hiring and not firing. This is a blessing and a glimmer of hope for homeowners.

HAMP Modifications Are Drying Up - Uh Oh?

I was reading over an article I saw on a proclaimed debt help resource for homeowners.

The article was on the stats and numbers pertaining to the HAMP modification performance to date.

I expected to see good numbers as I have been hearing good things amidst the never ending slue of finance blog posts that I read on the housing market.



At first I really did see some promising numbers. There was a few highlights to warm you up stating how much money everyone was saving through these modifications through Obamas homeowner help program.

Then the first data table looked pretty swell as well. At first but as I followed the dates down from May of last year to the turn of the decade and then the numbers just started to crawl.

The next data table was even worst in fact it was a bit horrifying. It was just month to month growth rates for the cumulative modifications and net new monthly modifications... it was bad. I almost want to believe those guys made the whole thing up... but he didn't.

I think the future is becoming bleaker suddenly and no one knows it yet.

I hope we are not as screwed as those damn data tables make me think we are.

At one point I thought maybe that the population of eligible homeowners was simply exhausted. This is not so. The Make Home Affordable Outreach effort are only increasing in intensity. More and more homeowners are being urged to check the basic qualifications of Obama's modification assistance program and to apply if eligible.

Stabilizing The Housing Market – How America Did It

The mortgage loan and housing crisis created tremendous economic anxiety and directed the American economy towards a black hole of financial hardship.

Though the US economy is not out of the recession or perhaps depression, things have appeared to settle down a bit.

It looks as if the housing market may be stabilizing. This sis a article exploring the steps and actions that were taken to stabilize the US housing market.

Key Actions of Housing Recovery

• The FHA's Efforts and Powerful Initiative

• Their efforts to spend capital on mortgage assets and securities when private capital was no where to be found.

• Political backing of their efforts to reform the financial markets and particularly the practices and operations involving debt and risk management.

• Obama’s Making Home Affordable Plan

• HAMP Modifications have helped 1.2 million homeowners obtain a loan modification

• HARP Refinance

• Lender Incentives

• Freddie Mae as acting agent for the MHA-C or the compliance assurance operations

• The Plans overall flexibility and agility to structure and restructure programs as they are needed.

• The Marketing and Advertising – aka the out reach efforts of the Making Home Affordable Plan

• The Hardest Hit Fund – Foreclosure Relief

• Home Buyer Tax Credit
• The home buyer tax credit added a great incentive for first time home buyers.

• The Nearly 25 Billion Dollars Given to US Housing Agencies
• US Housing Agencies were able to keep lending while other private lenders were saddle bagging cash out of fear and financial panic.

• 1.4 Trillion dollars of Purchases by the FED and Treasury to Keep Credit Markets from Choking
• Thank God. We would be Russian otherwise.

• Financial Support for Fannie and Freddie

All of these actions taken by our collective American government has really helped stabilize the US housing market.

Obama Loan Modification - From 1 to 500,000 Mortgage Modifications

The Obama Loan Modification program known as the making home affordable plan has been a success! Mortgage Lenders finally got the hint from President Obama and his administration, They are now clearly headed in the right direction and offering Homeowner Hope to those in financial distress.


Large lending institutions such as Saxon, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and many others have really cam through this last month or so and have done their part in America's collective effort to Make Home Affordable by restructuring Home Mortgage loans under the Obama specified guide lines. In fact the mortgage lenders have even one upped Obama by completing the goal of 500,000 loan modifications by November 1st. They completed this feat with ease and plenty of time to spare as of early this month on October 6th.