ProHopeFinancial

Obama Breathes New hope into the Making Home Affordable Mortgage Refinance Plan

2010-06-30T02:00:00.000-07:00

President Obama signed in a modification to one of the Making Home Affordable Plan's mortgage assistance programs. HARP, or the Home Affordable Refinance Program has been modified by obama to become more liberal towards the homeowners home debt to home value ratio. Before the new guidelines homeowners who had a mortgage that was upside down, or underwater, or in other words if the mortgage balance was larger then the value of the home the homeowner simply did not qualify for the obama refinance assistance program.

On July 1st 2009, Obama expanded the reach of the Make Home Affordable Mortgage Refinance Program. Before the recent change the mortgage refinance side had a qualifying term that restricted the eligibility of this program to Homeowners who had a loan to value percentage of 105% or less. Today however a Homeowner who has as high of a loan to value ratio as 125% is now eligible under the new Obama modifications put in place. This is quite a significant increase in reach in regards to the HARP qualifying terms. Now we all just have to hope that the lenders are willing to work with those kind of numbers.

General Benefits of the expanded version of the Home Affordable Refinance Program

The expanded reach will allow more Homeowners to have the opportunity of obtaining a mortgage refinance agreement and thus allowing American Homeowners to Make Home Affordable.
The overall economy should benefit if even only slightly in consideration to the increase of mortgage refinance agreements, a dip in foreclosures and mortgage defaults.

Possible Downfalls of the new Modifications made to the Mortgage Refinance Plan

The Broader reach may prove to be pointless if the Mortgage Lenders are unwilling to work with the riskier Borrowers.
If the lenders get to eager or over zealous with the Mortgage Refinance opportunities it could eventually cause a bigger problem down the road.

What about the Making Home Affordable Loan Modification Program?

The Make Home Affordable Loan Modification Program is unaffected and remains the same in regards to the terms of qualifications for the Make Home Affordable Plan.

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Mortgage Modification - The Importance of Communicating Hardship and Writing Your Hardship Letter

2010-06-28T09:58:00.000-07:00

Your Hardship Letter is a crucial aspect of your ability to Obtain a Loan Modification

Your hardship letter is one of the most important aspects of your efforts to make home affordable by obtaining a mortgage modification or other mortgage solution from your lender.

Communicating Hardship to Your Lender is Key

Your lender will not even consider lowering your monthly mortgage payment, modifying your mortgage, granting forbearance, or any other like activity until they know that you are experiencing a financial hardship that will prevent you from paying the monthly mortgage installments.

If you are looking for a mortgage solution that allows you to make home affordable then you need to write and submit a hardship letter to your mortgage lender. No hardship letter no loan modification.

The hardship letter is what starts the process of obtaining a loan modification. The loss mitigation specialists of your mortgage lender must feel that you have indeed incurred a hardship that prevents you from paying the full amount of your mortgage payment. If this hardship is not determined to be legitimate by your lender then you will not even be considered. The show will stop there.

This is an excellent reason to put extreme care and consideration into what and how you claim hardship.

What does that mean?

First of all you want to make sure that you have been hit by a legitimate financial hardship. This means that you can't say that you did not like your boss and quit thus you have no income. This will not work. Now if you were laid off because of budget cuts and have yet to find other employment then you will have a legitimate hardship in the eyes of your lender.

Now that you have a legitimate hardship that through no fault of your own has caused you to become unable to pay the mortgage payments you need to communicate this tragic hardship news to your mortgage lender. To do this you need to write a hardship letter describing the events and the exact nature of your financial hardship.

When you write this hardship letter you need to use a professional format, a professional language, and a professional tone. If you are well versed in the party to party language used in business communications then this should not be a hard task. However not all of us need to use the self righteous ways of white collared working professionals. If you don't write these sort of letters on a regular basis then it would be a good decision to get some hardship letter help.

You may have a friend, family member, or a co-worker whom knows more about these things. If this is the case ask them to help. If you are rolling your eyes as you read this than perhaps you can just do a little research. You can find a hardship letter template.

Related Debt and Finance Resources

How to Write a Mortgage Hardship Letter

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DIY Credit Card Debt Management Plan

Ken Lewis Replacement as BoA CEO is Named

2009-12-16T22:40:00.000-08:00

A guy named Brian T. Moynihan has been announced as the new Bank of America CEO. Brian will replace the current CEO Ken Lewis after Mr. Lewis retires come December 31st.

Brian T. Moynihan is 50 years old and has been in charge of the consumer and small business division of Bank of America. perhaps you have heard of them they influence the lives of 53 million households and businesses.

Brian much like Lewis started with a financial institution and worked his way up to the top. Though Brian started with Fleet Boston Financial in 1993 and was at the top by the time the company was taken over by Bank Of America.

Hope of Genuine Mortgage and Housing Stability

2009-11-13T08:20:00.000-08:00

The number of foreclosure sales that were executed last month was lower then the previous month. The decrease in foreclosure sales in October compared to November is now the third month to month drop in foreclosure sales in a row!

This is a exciting new trend, and is great news for the housing and mortgage lending industry as well as the American Homeowner and the American economy. The big question now is will it hold?

Though it would be more then unwise to assume all is well in the financial markets and economy, there is no denying that the financial news reporting this three month trend is indeed a trend. There are some concrete signs of stability and a bottoming out in terms of foreclosures. Even so there is still a long way for the economy and America to go before it is time pat ourselves on the back and claim that the recession and all the financial hardship it keeps as close company is all behind us. We still have some major ground to cover.

Broader Financial Hit List:

Debt Help and Debt Solutions
Job Creation
Small Business Lending
Credit Card Debt
Housing and Foreclosure
AIG and the like
Automotive Industry

Though there is a ways to go before we are financially "in the clear" if there is such a thing, we must not overlook the foreclosure hope that this three month trend of less and less foreclosures. We should give credit to President Obama and his administration for inspiring the Nation's lenders and mortgage services to embrace and apply the Making Home Affordable Loan Modification and Mortgage Refinance Plan with the dedication and dignity that they have. it has been this collective partnership and ability to work together that has led to the apparent economic turnaround.

Homeowners are now able to obtain a restructured mortgage agreement today faster then just three months ago. That's not all. These loan modifications are three times more likely to reduce mortgage principle.

Let us hope that we can keep the momentum going.

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Banks are Failing: 100+ this year!

2009-10-25T08:51:00.000-07:00

105 or so banks have failed in the US this year. This is quite a statistic. Though we should say that this number may seem more catastrophic then it really is. To put this number in perspective if you go back to 1992 during the credit and loans crisis, there were 182 bank failures. so on that level things may not seem so bad.

Read More on Bank Failures

Another important point to bring up is that FDIC Insured accounts, which is basically any CD savings account or checking account, are insured up to 250,000.00 dollars. So in other words there is no need to panic or start a run on the banks. That would be bad.

As far as actual cost thus far to the FDIC guys, approximately 20 Billion so far but there are estimates that this figure will increase to about 100 Billion by the end of 2013.

Just in case you have been on vacation for the last two years the cause of all this financial ruin and bank failures stems from the collapse of the housing market. This and the mortgage and loan crisis including credit card debt which is just getting started and in my opinion is the biggest an most dangerous bullet.

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HAMP - Home Affordable Modification Program

2009-10-14T21:11:00.000-07:00

The Home Affordable Modification Program also offered to as HAMP for short is the obama loan modification portion of the Making Home Affordable Plan. The volume of mortgage modifications from president Obama's Homeowner help and assistance program created to make home affordable for the American Homeowner as performed better then the steep goals originally set by Obama himself.

Thats right lenders such as Saxon, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America have really made an effort to do their part by working with the borrowers who bare a financial hardship and are at risk of foreclosure.

How Many HAMP Modifications?

There are now more then 500,000 loan modification proposals granted to Homeowners around the country.

Also loan modifications are now three times more likely to lower principle of mortgage balance!

ProHopeFinancial.blogspot.com tips our hat.

Innovative peer to peer lending lending platform: Can you Prosper?

2009-09-09T18:00:00.000-07:00

There is a cool new innovative lending site online known as prosper.com

Prosper.com is a peer to peer lending site that allows users which are both borrowers and or lenders, to borrow money or lend money to individuals in denominations of as little as 50.00

You can let prosper.com blend a portfolio for you or you can pick and choose your own investments. It is very intriguing to say the least.

Though prosper certainly has their share of losses incurred or I should say default loans. But they advertise an avg return of 7.06 percent to investors on loans of Credit Grade B or Higher.

If you need a loan the prosper.com peer to peer lending site may be just the place for you.

Quick Facts and Characteristics:

loans can be from 1000 - 25000
credit score is not shown but the letter grade is so folks know a 40 point range
Also lists other info such as income.
User profiles and Q and A's

All Prosper.com originated loans are unsecured debt

Homeowner Appreciation: Saxon Mortgage

2009-08-12T11:34:00.000-07:00

Thank You Saxon for Making Home Affordable For The American Homeowner Through Loan Modification

As the current foreclosure and mortgage crisis persists so to does government, public, and private efforts to create outlets for Homeowners to seek mortgage assistance. Despite the Billions upon billions of dollars set aside to aid these efforts, and the substantial efforts of public and private officials and persons to create such programs, resources, and outlets like the Hope For Homeowners Program, Obama’s Making Home Affordable Plan, the Hope Now Alliance, LoanSafe.Org, ForeclosureHelpandHope.Org, HomeownerDebtHelp.com, and countless other online debt help resources and local community organizations and functions that all aid the efforts of the American homeowner in the fight to keep their home, despite these efforts only 9% of Homeowners who qualify for mortgage assistance have received mortgage assistance under these programs.

Many have pointed the finger at Mortgage service providers and banks such as BoA , Wachovia (now Wells Fargo), Wells Fargo, PNC, and American Home Mortgage Servicing just to name a few of the 38 mortgage companies who participate in the Obama loan modification program known as the Making Home Affordable Program. Critics claim that efforts from the mortgage industry are inadequate at best, very few eligible Homeowners who qualify for newest mortgage assistance program created by President Obama actually get the opportunity to obtain a loan modification. Though in all fairness it should be mentioned that the program is relatively new, the majority of these mortgage institutions are claiming to raise their level of participation, many of these organizations seem to be following through such as Wells Fargo who also has modified 220,000 mortgages outside of the Make Home Affordable Loan Modification Program. There are other bright spots giving way to positive hopes for the future effectiveness of mortgage assistance efforts.

One that we feel should get some real attention is the wonderful and hard working loss mitigation efforts of Saxon Mortgage who has modified mortgages of qualifying homeowners at a rate just shy of 3 times that of the overall average, this stat is even more impressive when you consider that the average rate may very well be inflated by Saxon’s rate. Many hope that other lenders will follow in Saxon’s footsteps and extend the same faith and acknowledgement of the importance and value of the American Homeowner and the American dream by stepping up to the plate and giving those in need another chance to keep their home.

Saxon Mortgage has done a great job by any available measure to their peers. The should be acknowledged and recognized for this. But as a final thought to ponder as Americans… Saxon Mortgage has modified 1 out of 4 eligible mortgages. This means that 25% of Homeowners in financial hardship with a Saxon mortgage who qualify for the Obama loan modification plan were able to obtain a lower monthly payment, stop foreclosure, and keep their home. This is by far better then the average which is 1 out of 11 or 12 and even more impressive to some of the other mortgage giants such as BofA who has a record of 1 out of 25 or Wachovia’s rate which is closer to about 1 out of 50 Homeowners.

These numbers will not work.

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Government Help and Resources for American Homeowners

2009-07-17T14:44:00.000-07:00

ProHopeFinancial Wanted to take the Time to list the Mortgage Help and Assistance Programs and Resources available for the American Homeowner

Obama's Plan: Making Home Affordable Loan Modification and Mortgage Refinance Programs

Making Home Affordable Plan debuted mid April or so. The Homeowner help and assistance program is composed of two loss mitigation tools; Loan Modification and Mortgage Refinance.

Make Home Affordable Loan Modification-

The Obama loan modification plan is designed for those Homeowners who have incurred some sort of financial hardship that has caused their monthly mortgage payment to become to high given their current financial situation.
This mortgage modification program does have qualifications that the Homeowner must meet in order to utilize or rather obtain a restructured agreement through this program.
The program is designed for those Homeowners who are already in default or in foreclosure.
The Make Home Affordable Loan Modification Program has been forecasted to modify 20,000 mortgage loans a week by August.
Much of the early success is most likely due to the lender incentive that Obama has provided to stimulate use of this loan modification program.
There is plenty of information around that can help you determine if you meet the basic qualifications for the Obama modification program known as HAMP but the official government sponsored site for the Making Home Affordable Plan is @ http://www.MakingHomeAffordable.Gov
Homeowners should remember that the Making Home Affordable Plan is a voluntary program and thus ultimately up to the lender to participate.

Making Home Affordable Mortgage Refinance Program:

The Obama Mortgage Refinance Program allows Homeowners who are current but coming to the end of their rope financially the ability to obtain a mortgage refinance agreement. You must write and submit an effective hardship letter.
This is only for those Homeowners who have a Freddie or Frannie backed Mortgage. This program has other restrictions and qualifications the Homeowner must also meet in order to participate.
Obama has recently updated the Making Home Affordable Mortgage Refinance Program. These modifications or changes have expanded the reach to more Homeowners who were previously unable to qualify.
The program is voluntary just as the loan modification program. You must apply for HARP assistance

We plan on posting information on the Hope For Homeowners Program as well as the FHA Stream Lined Loan Modification Program and helpful information on resources available to Homeowners such as Hope Now and the Hope Now Alliance, and other HUD related organizations that have been created to help the American Homeowner.

ProHopeFinancial: General Financial Resource for a Struggling Economy

2009-04-29T08:40:00.000-07:00

This blog titled ProHopeFinancial is a financial news and information resource inspired by and maintained for today's struggling consumers who have no choice but to endure the punishment of the current economy.

Financial News- we will keep you posted and up to date on all the current financial news and market trends. You will be able to understand why and what is important and what it means for you.

Financial Information, Recommendations, Tips and Opinions - we will help create a smarter and wiser consumer at least in regards to the financial world. we will also welcome reader involvement by encouraging comments requests and testimonials of past experiences.

If you as a reader have any comments or requests or perhaps even some original content of your own you would like us to take a look at please email prohope123@gmail.com

ProHopeFinancial