Word: fha
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Under the new plan, unveiled Friday, March 26, banks will be asked to lower the principal loan balance for certain homeowners whose mortgages exceed the value of their homes. The loans would be refinanced as mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), fully backed by the government. In the past, loan modifications under the $50 billion federal Home Modification Program (HAMP) involved primarily reducing interest rates or lengthening the term of the mortgage, and most did not entail a government guarantee. (See high-end homes that won't sell...
...FHA part of the program has tight restrictions: homeowners must be current on their mortgage payments, live in the home, have a FICO score of at least 500 and qualify for a standard FHA-backed loan once the principal is reduced. Those who get a modified loan must make full monthly payments for three years for the principal to be reduced permanently. The high standards for these loan modifications suggest that the Administration hopes to head off another wave of loan defaults and foreclosures by providing help earlier in the process...
...borrowers with low credit scores, which is generally anything below 650. The credit crunch, though, put most of those firms out of business. Last year, financial firms made just $4 billion in home loans to people with poor credit. That number excludes loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which traditionally has helped troubled borrowers get mortgages...
...even the home lender of last resort is increasingly ditching those with low scores in favor of people with better credit. In the last seven months of 2009, the most recent data available, the FHA, which doesn't make its own loans but provides insurance for lenders that do, backed just $8.3 billion in loans to borrowers with a credit score of 619 or worse. That's down from $39 billion in the same time period a year before. (See a report card on the stimulus programs...
...into that camp. "The goal isn't to keep the home in every situation," she says. "The goal is to avoid foreclosure, and in a lot of situations, it's not in the client's best interest to try to keep the home and only postpone the inevitable." (Read "FHA: Housing's Safety Net Begins to Fray...