Who Is Eligible For The Government Loan Modification Program?
People who are in danger of defaulting on their mortgages or have already missed a payment may be eligible for the Government Loan Modification Program. Under the Making Home Affordable (MHA) Program homeowners have a way to avoid foreclosure. Several reasons help people to qualify for this program.
The program helps people to lower their payments. At the time that people bought their homes they may have been in a good financial situation and they could easily make their payments. If they had an adjustable rate mortgage and the payments increased significantly to an amount that they can no longer afford they are in danger of losing their homes and they need a modification that lowers these payments. The MHA program is just the thing that can do this for these homeowners.
The interest rates for mortgages are lower now and homeowners who need a lower payment would like to refinance their mortgages rates. This is not always possible because homeowners are not always given the option by their banks to lower their interest rates. The Making Home Affordable Program would be a help to these people by giving them the lower interest rate they need.
In the current economy lots of people have lost their jobs. This makes paying their mortgage payments extremely difficult because they are not receiving as much in unemployment payments as they were earning in salary. The MHA program helps people here, too, by decreasing the amount they pay for their mortgages each month. It also may relieve the homeowner of having to make these payments for a time while they are unemployed.
With falling home values a lot of people owe more on their properties than they are worth. Certain people in this situation may qualify for the MHA program. One of the reasons that people meet the requirements for this particular program is if they are looking for a way to make their mortgages more affordable; it is not enough to just say that a home is “underwater” to apply for this program.
For some people the mortgage is just too burdensome and it cannot be salvaged. The only way they may see out of this difficult situation like having to make mortgage payments one cannot afford is to completely leave the situation. A lot of people have done this; they have moved out of their houses and left them for the banks, but this makes them candidates for foreclosure.
The MHA program can keep people from having to take this option. They can walk away without being responsible for the balance on the loan. The program even gives these homeowners an allowance of $3,000 with which they will be able to move into a new home. Foreclosure ceases to be a concern for these people.
Once homeowners determine that they are eligible for the MHA program the next step is to find out if their mortgage companies are participants in the program. If they are then mortgagees have the option of applying for assistance under this program. Help is available for people who want to explore this option.