Obama HARP Program – A Solution For Arizona Home Owners With Underwater Mortgages

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have just released details on how they will handle refinance transactions authorized by the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP 2.0).  Changes to the original HARP Refinance Program include no loan to value restrictions, primary – second home – or investment properties qualify, and income does not need to be verified… in fact you may not even need to be employed which may be what the banks need in order to get on board.

Even though this legislation has passed – all lenders are not all required to participate.  For right now, your first step is to contact a mortgage professional and get information as to their participation.

In the case of all loans, your loan must be delivered back to the existing owner of the loan.  Meaning, if Fannie Mae is the owner of the loan, the loan must be delivered to Fannie Mae and underwritten according to their guidelines.  The same is true for Freddie Mac.  You must first determine who owns your loan.  A borrower has the ability to do this by contacting their servicer and asking…or by using the links below.

Does Fannie Mae Own Your Mortgage?

Does Freddie Mac Own Your Mortgage?

Let’s look at the guidelines for both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and point out some of the key factors we see that will impact or enhance your ability to participate.

Here are a few of the new HARP Program qualifying guidelines:

Loan is backed by Fannie or Freddie [click to check the respective “look-ups”].
Your current mortgage home loan must have been securitized prior to June 1, 2009 by FNMA or FHMLC.
You  must have paid your mortgage on-time for the prior 6 months.
You must have paid on time for 11 of the last 12 months, or have no more than one 30 day late payment in that period.

It may be until early March before the banks will start accepting applications for HARP Refinances, but the numbers of packages are already stacking up… and if the program is all that we hope it will be for Arizona home owners, there will be a bunch of people running to get through the door.