Save Your Upside Down Home Loan With Revised, Extended HARP Program!

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To me, it is a real joy to see a family make use of a government program that ultimately lets them keep the home they are living in.

So many of these programs did NOT work four-five years ago and it is sad that those people lost their homes primarily due to greed on the part of bankers.

Recently family friends received a check from the government for $3,000 “as a result of an agreement between federal banking regulators and Saxon (a bank’s loan servicer-DF) in connection with an enforcement action (The government sued Saxon for malpractice and won-DF) related to deficient mortgage servicing and foreclosure processes.”

Well, that is good handy money for my friends, but it would have been better if Saxon and others had not done robo-signing and worse to get my friends displaced and then the banks resold their home on the courthouse steps to a flipper who profited from the action.

Today, there are a number of programs to assist homeowners who have fallen behind on their mortgage payments, but the most memorable of them all is HARP which stands for Home Affordable Refinance Program.

HARP was originally set to expire Dec. 31, 2013, but will now be extended will be expanded for another two years, to the end of 2015, the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced.

 "More than 2 million home owners have refinanced through HARP, proving it a useful tool for reducing risk," says FHFA acting director Edward DeMarco.

As usual there are some strings attached to HARP, but usage has recently shot upwards.

The Home Affordable Refinance Program is four years old, yet half of the total number of refinances took place just last year -- about 1.1 million in 2012 and 1.1 million from 2009 to 2011.

The revisions to the original HARP program (known as HARP 2.0) appear to have jump-started the otherwise lackluster program.

Beyond that, HARP 2.0 seems to have particularly helped struggling homeowners stay in their homes -- the people it was intended to help in the first place -- according to Federal Housing Finance Agency data.

There was a staggering 600 percent annual increase in 2012 in the number of homeowners who were underwater that received HARP loans.

Home owners eligible to apply for refinancing under HARP, must have a Fannie Mae- or Freddie Mac-backed mortgage that was guaranteed on or before May 31, 2009.

They must be current on their loan, and must have a current loan-to-value ratio more than 80 percent.

If you are interested in finding out whether you could benefit from a HARP home refinance, contact me at Debbie@DebbieFerrari.com and I will give you the sources. Or, visit my brand new South Orange County real estate website packed with MLS and consumer real estate info.