The FHA’s reverse mortgage program has undergone a number of changes in the past year, and now HUD says more are to be expected.
HUD is also telling reverse mortgage lenders they can add additional requirements above the FHA standard to help reduce program claims…or are they? Read the rest of this entry »
Homeowners in 27 states and Puerto Rico who are at risk of foreclosure may finally be getting some much-needed relief.
The Emergency Homeowners’ Loan Program (EHLP), created through the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform, is designed to provide an interest-free loan to those struggling to make their monthly payments due to unemployment, underemployment, illness or injury.
As of late Friday (April 8, 2011) afternoon in Washington D.C., an agreement to continue the operations of the national government for a few days had been reached, but the lack of a longer-term arrangement raises a question: How would the mortgage and real estate markets be impacted if the government did shut down?
The real question concerns the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). It has a huge presence in the marketplace, and there’s no doubt that the FHA would stop processing loans in the event of a shut-down which lasted past the weekend. As HUD explained to lenders Friday evening, “FHA loans will not be endorsed during the government shutdown period.”
If you want to know the difference between conventional mortgages and Federal Housing Administration (FHA) financing, the first item up for discussion is typically the cost of each loan.
For instance, the Wall Street Journal tells us that “conforming mortgages, or those that can be bought by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, commonly require higher down payments than FHA loans require. The catch to an FHA-insured loan is that you’ll pay more in fees.”
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With all the recent debate surrounding the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the question, “What if Fannie or Freddie disappeared from the market” has come up quite a bit. But HUD…I honestly haven’t really been thinking “What would happen if HUD disappeared?”
That is until today.
Saturday
Shaun Donovan, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, recently announced that HUD will increase the financial support they provide to housing counselors across the country in an effort to increase education and foreclosure prevention:
In an effort to help families find decent housing and to prevent future foreclosures, the Obama Administration today announced nearly $73 million in housing counseling grants to more than 500 national, regional and local organizations. As a result of the funding announced today, hundreds of thousands of households will have a greater opportunity to find housing or keep the homes they have because of the housing counseling and counseling training grants awarded today by U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan. Read the rest of this entry »
Saturday
“Despise HAMP? Your servicer does too“:
Homeowners and government watchdogs agree: The much-vaunted Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) has so far been a failure. Likewise, the mortgage servicing companies charged with implementing the program aren’t too happy with it either. But do servicers’ complaints have merit? Or are they improperly and deliberately denying HAMP claims?
Friday
Nationally-syndicated columnist Peter G. Miller writes, “Fixing the mortgage system is crucial if we’re to prevent another financial meltdown.”
Miller offers six steps to fix the system; six steps that he says can be done starting this week. Let us take a look at a few:
Second, lending rules must be changed so that loan officers have a fiduciary obligation to borrowers, in the same way that lawyers have an obligation to clients and doctors have an obligation to patients. The creation of a fiduciary obligation for loan officers would mean that aggrieved borrowers could take loan officers and their lenders to court in the event of abuse, a system which seems to work well for virtually every other type of business.
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