04-03-2009, 08:09 PM
3d wrote:
I looked into it last month when this was in the news. If i remember correctly,,, there were 4 (or was it 5?) very specific requirements that need to be met for you to qualify as being in "Financial Hardship".
The first and biggest requirement was that your current monthly mortgage payment must be more than 31% of your household income.
Another one is that you must be working. And yet another is that the new mortgage must not be worth more than what the current market value of the property is worth. Borrowers will have to provide their most recent tax return and two pay stubs. There might be others...
That "31%" requirement I listed above knocked me right out of the running so i stopped looking into it...
Do you have more concrete info?
check out the link...i think it does some eligibility stuff. The 31% thing is for the loan modifications. The refinance is a totally different story. The loan mod program will comb through your finances very thoroughly. The refi - not so much. I specificaly told the guy "I'm afraid we make too much money." and he said, "that's for the mod program...the refi is not income-dependent. You just have to be current on your payments. " We'll see...
I did know about that bofa thing...i don't think it will make a difference. I'll be sure to ask.
I have heard that if you owe less than 80%, the program is not for you. I think it's designed for people that aren't totally underwater (they should look at the loan mod program), but the market has eaten up too much equity so as to prevent them from doing a conventional loan. The FHA loans are great, but they have PMI and they can't be re-cast down the line. With this program, we plan on keeping this house for a while at that low rate. If we wanted to do a balloon payment to get the payment down, we could. Can't do that with a FHA.
kiva