If you’re looking to take advantage of the low NH mortgage rates but the value of your home has made it impossible, things just got a whole lot easier!

The Making Home Affordable Mortgage Refinance Program “looks the other way” with respect to current home values, approving NH mortgage applications based on borrower payment history, benefit to the homeowner. with reduced payments and ability to make payments going forward.
NH mortgage applicants have to meet a few basic qualifications to take advantage of the Making Home Affordable refinance program.

Those with NH mortgages must first determine if they have a Fannie or a Feddie loan. Most NH loans (with the exception of NH FHA loans) are with one of these agencies. Fannie’s online tool is much easier to work with and, since they have a larger percentage of loans, there’s a greater chance that you’ll have your answer with one visit. Freddie’s site requires a NH home owner to enter their social secirity number, too.
Next, you must have a perfect mortgage payment history over the last 12 months.  Even one payment made 30 days late disqualifies you from participating in the Making Home Affordable program.  It is okay, however, if you were 20 days late on your payment and incurred late fees.

And lastly, the balance on your mortgage cannot exceed your home’s value by more than 5%.  The math formula is (Mortgage Balance) / (Home Value).  If the quotient is greater than 1.05 then your loan-to-value exceeds 105% and you are not eligible for Making Home Affordable.

If you’ve made it this far, there are some things to keep in mind:

1. If you didn’t pay mortgage insurance prior to refinancing, you won’t have to pay it after refinancing — even if your loan-to-value exceeds 80%.
2. All NH mortgage refinances under this program and pretty much every other program available require income verification — even if the original mortgage was a stated income loan.
3. Second mortgages cannot be paid off using loan proceeds — they must be subordinated

Fannie and Freddie each of other guidelines that need to be followed as well. And, of course, their guidelines are different from each other! Like most government programs, their guidleines are created by the pound and all of us are learning as we go. My recommendation would be to give their guidleines a brief review before talking with a local NH mortgage lender (like me!) so that you have a general understanding.

If you have followed along and determined that this may be a good option to refinance your existing NH mortgage, it probably makes sense to act sooner rather than later. While, the program doesn’t end until June 10, 2010 , low NH mortgage rates probably won’t last that long so pick up the phone and give us a call or complete the no obligation application and we’ll help you sort this out ASAP.

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NH Homeowners Should Know: Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan

President Obama unveiled his plan to help stabilize the housing market and
keep millions of borrowers in their homes. This should help thousands of NH homeowners.

The Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan includes two initiatives to help
struggling homeowners. The first is a refinancing program for homeowners with
less than 20% equity in their homes, or who owe more than their home is worth.
The second program attempts to lower monthly payments for homeowners at
risk of losing their home. In addition, the plan includes a third initiative to
support low mortgage rates by strengthening confidence in Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac.

Refinancing Initiative

Under current rules, those families who own less than 20% equity in their
homes have a difficult time refinancing and taking advantage of the historically
low interest rates. Therefore, the refinancing initiative in the new plan provides
refinancing help for homeowners with less than 20% equity in their homes or
who owe more than their home is worth. This initiative is open to homeowners
who have conforming loans which are guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac, and who owe up to 5% more than their home is worth.
According to the plan, “credit-worthy” or “responsible” homeowners can
refinance their mortgage into a 30- or 15-year, fixed-rate loan based on current
market rates. The refinanced loan, however, cannot include prepayment
penalties or balloon payments. For many families, this low-cost refinancing may
help reduce their mortgage payments by up to thousands of dollars per year.
As with the rest of the plan, details about this initiative will be released at a
future date—including what, if any, credit score requirements will be included. There are also questions regarding mortgage insurance and how a NH homeowner can go about refinancing. It appears that each of the now government agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, will make matters a bit more confusing for NH consumers by each having a different process!

Stability Initiative

This initiative aims at providing help to individual families as well as entire
neighborhoods by helping reduce foreclosures and stabilize home prices. It is
intended to help homeowners who are struggling to afford their mortgage
payments, but cannot sell their homes because prices have fallen significantly.
The goal of this initiative is simple: “reduce the amount homeowners owe per
month to sustainable levels.” To accomplish this, lenders are encouraged (and paid!) to
lower homeowners’ payments to 31 percent of their income by lowering their
interest rate to as low as 2% or by extending the terms of the loan. In addition,
lenders can also lower the principal owed by the borrower, with Treasury
sharing in the costs.
Homeowners who are current on their mortgages but are struggling can still
apply for this program. As such, this is one of the few programs designed to
help homeowners who may face delinquency soon, but are current at the
moment.
Since the focus of this initiative is on helping families and neighborhoods,
investment properties do not qualify. This initiative also includes a number of
additional elements and incentives that benefit homeowners and lenders alike,
including:

• Incentives to Help Borrowers Stay Current: To provide an extra incentivefor borrowers to keep paying on time, the initiative will provide a monthlybalance reduction payment that goes straight towards reducing theprincipal balance of the mortgage loan. As long as a borrower stays current on his or her loan, he or she can get up to $1,000 each year for five years.
• Reaching Borrowers Early: To keep lenders focused on reaching borrowers who are trying their best to stay current on their mortgages, an incentive payment of $500 will be paid to servicers, and an incentive payment of $1,500 will be paid to mortgage holders, if they modify at-riskloans before the borrower falls behind.

Supporting Low Mortgage Rates

As part of the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan, the Treasury
Department is increasing its funding commitment to Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac to ensure the strength and security of the mortgage market and to help
maintain mortgage affordability. This portion of the plan will use using funds
already authorized in 2008 by Congress for this purpose.

The increased funding will enable Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to carry out
ambitious efforts to ensure mortgage affordability for responsible homeowners,
and provide forward-looking confidence in the mortgage market.

You can download a sheet of common Questions and Answers
produced by the government by clicking here.

I will continue monitoring the plan as new information becomes available. If you
have any questions or would like to discuss how this may specifically impact
you, head over to our primary blog at on NH Mortgage Rates.

Technorati Tags: NH Mortgage, nh real estate, nh refinance

A Great Video on Home Affordability that’s particularly timely as the Spring buying season starts to take shape!

Technorati Tags: nh home buying, nh mortgage rates, nh real estate