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Is Obama’s loan modification helping all homeowners?


The Obama Administration announced March 4, 2009 the so called “Making Home Affordable Program”. This is Obama’s USD$75 billion dollar bail out program and many homeowners are pinning their hopes on it. Obama’s federal program for loan modification is being offered for a limited time period. The main aim of the mortgage loan modification program is to help homeowners with a lower monthly payment thus making the payments more affordable for them.

The program has a standardized layout and your loan modification request is either refused or accepted depending on your financial condition. There is no option of negotiation involved in the program.

Find out if you qualify for Obama’s Loan Modification program

You are required to meet certain criteria in order to qualify for the loan modification program. The home you are residing in should be your primary residence. The mortgage loan should have been taken out before January 1st 2009. As far the loan amount is concerned, it should not exceed USD$729,750. The mortgage payments you make every month should be 31% of your gross monthly income. This should however include insurance as well as taxes.

Although Obama’s Homeowners Affordability and Stability Plan is making a lot of hue and cry about helping homeowners but it is not proving to be beneficial for all. Let us see why.

Why isn’t Obama’s Plan helping everyone?

  • Even though Obama’s loan modification program is helping homeowners but the benefit cannot be availed by all. The main reason is that the decision still lies in the hands of the lenders. Lenders may either refuse or accept your loan modification request.
  • Since the program is available for a limited time period, lenders have a deadline and they can participate in the program until December 2009. It is at the discretion of the lenders whether they will be on board the program or not. Even though few lenders have participated already, there is no incentive for getting on board first. A lender is paid only USD$1000 for carrying out the loan modification process for you. And in case, you make your payments regularly, USD$1000 gets subtracted from the principal balance for the 1st five years.
  • The qualifying factors have been made very stringent and majority of the homeowners fail to understand whether they qualify for the program or not.
  • Obama’s Homwowners Affordability and Stability Plan fails to address the problems of “underwater” homeowners. These homeowners are the ones who have negative equity in their homes. And they have no other option but to “voluntarily” walk away from their property as making further
    investment in the property makes no sense.

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