We’ve lightly discussed the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) on this blog in the recent past. To freshen up your mind, HARP was instated to allow for those homeowners who are currently “underwater” to potentially refinance and get themselves into stress-free position regarding their mortgage rates. HARP is beneficial to countless homeowners but that number of people eligible is about to skyrocket.
The U.S. Federal Government seems to have taken notice of the importance of this program. Rules for eligibility of HARP will become far easier to meet than ever before once March 2012 roles around. Potentially the biggest change to the rules of the program is the LTV cap. Previously that cap was at 125% but once HARP is updated in March, that cap will be lifted. Meaning, there will no longer be an LTV cap so those of you homeowners who previously had not qualified due to LTV. Well that issue will now be non-existent.
Not everyone is out of the woods just yet though when it comes to qualifying. There are some other things to take into account when determining if you actually qualify or not for HARP. To start, we will need to check if your loan for the property is either guaranteed or owned by one of the two-following companies. Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. There are a couple useful tools you can use to determine this. Go to Freddie’s tool and Fannie’s tool to determine which of the two your loan could potentially run through. If you wish to determine this over the phone, call 1-800-FREDDIE (Freddie Mac) or 1-800-7FANNIE (Fannie Mae).
One other tidbit of information you should be aware of is the date your loan was potentially sold to Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae. Due to the HARP guidelines, any loan sold on or after June 1, 2009 to one of the two companies, is not eligible for the program.
We here at Riverbank Finance can help with any of your questions regarding the HARP program. Call us at: 1-800-555-2098. If you wish to be contacted via email, just fill out the form below.
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[...] the Home Affordable Refinance Program until December 31, 2013. The program was thus dubbed, HARP 2.0. A few key changes to the program came along with this extension as well. All of which are [...]