Thursday, October 2, 2008

How To Avoid Foreclosure & The New Housing Rescue Bill

By Alfred Sant

In July of this year, President Bush signed a new program that is supposed to help many homeowners to avoid foreclosure and stay in their homes. In the last few weeks I have received many e-mails from subscribers asking me about this new Help Release Program. They want to know if this program is going to help them and how will it work?

Most homeowners have not idea how this new program is suppose to help them to avoid foreclosure, if in fact is going to do that, and if this financial crisis will affect the Rescue Program. They want to know who may or may not qualify, but mostly they want to know, if they do qualify for help, if it would come with any strings attach? Will be anything in the small prints that they should know or be aware of?

The New Housing Rescue Law is expected to ease the struggling housing market and help homeowners to avoid foreclosure; but the reality is that this Bill is intended to bolster the Mortgage Finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (this was developed before they had to be bail out by the Government) and not exactly to the majority of struggling homeowners in a direct way.

The answer is yes to both questions. The homeowners who get to qualify and pass the vigorous scrutiny, and finally qualify for a FHA backed home Mortgage Loan ,in order to avoid foerclosure there are a lot of things that you need to be aware of, and you better read well because, as usual, it is very likely that you will not be explained with details all the strings that come attach along with this Rescue Law. And this financial crisis will indeed affect the Housing Bill.

Is important that you understand that in many cases homeowners will be better off if they hold on to their homes for as long as the could, then letting the Bank Foreclose the property, rent for a year or two, and then when the home prices stop falling, star fresh and buy a new home. Going back to the Bill; before homeowners can get FHA backed mortgage loans; they must first pay back any other debt on the home, such as a home equity loan or line of credit. Borrowers will not be allowed to take out another home equity loan for a period of at least five years.

This program is voluntary for the Lenders that actually own your loan, so they first have to agree to rework the actual loan before anything could get started. The Bill requires Banks to make mayor concessions, reducing the value of the loan to 90% of its actual value. In areas with high foreclosure rates where home prices have dropped by as much as 45%, it will mean a significant loss for the Banks.

In the kind of financial environment that this economy is facing at this moment, the hight rate of foreclosure and the urgent need of cash that most Lenders have, I do not think it would be a big problem for the Lenders to accept 90% of the actual apprised home value, but there are other things involve in this matter.

The lenders will not sign off on a workout unless they think that they will lose less money on that than they would by allowing a home to go through the costly foreclosure process. In this regard there are many factor that need to be weighted in like; Will Fanny maid or Freddy Mac have the cash available, or if potential new buyer will find credit, if they decide to foreclose and then sell the property in the market.

There is a predetermined up front cash cost for borrowers to bear, and In fact the refinanced mortgages loans do come with many strings attach, so the homeowners who are facing foreclosure must be aware of what they are getting into, since it is not as simple as we may be bound to believe. In my website I explain everything you need to know in details as well as what you should do, and if you will or will not qualify for this Rescue Law Bill.

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