Vancouver Foreclosure Prevention Plan
Vancouver Foreclosure Prevention Plan
When people lose homes to foreclosure, our communities, the housing market, and our economy all suffer.
Separate from the stimulus package, President Obama has made up to $200 billion available to shore up investor confidence in the mortgage secondary market and up to $75 billion in incentives to encourage lenders and borrowers to refinance troubled loans. The effort is critical because of the destabilizing impact of high foreclosures and distressed sales, says NAR.
The plan details include:
- Help for home owners making their payments but at risk of default. Home owners with a conforming loan could be eligible to refinance as long as their mortgage doesn’t exceed 105 percent of the home’s current market value.
- Help for home owners already in default and in need of loan modification. For lenders that voluntarily agree to lower a borrower’s payment so that it makes up no more than 38 percent of the borrower’s income, the government would share the cost of lowering the mortgage burden further.
- Doubled resources to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. To encourage investors to buy the secondary market companies’ mortgage-backed securities, the government promises to back them to up to $400 billion, twice the current amount.
Guidelines for the program could be out before April 1. If you’re working with borrowers who are having trouble keeping up on their mortgage, tell them to call their mortgage servicer or a HUD-approved nonprofit housing counseling agency.
The stimulus package and foreclosure plan are a good start to solving the nation’s economic woes, says NAR 2009 President-elect Vicki Cox Golder. “By helping good people caught in bad mortgages, we’re keeping inventory from being added to a market already under stress.”
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