'Responsible Home Owners' to Get Aid in Expanded Program
'Responsible Home Owners' to Get Aid in Expanded Program
The Obama administration is expected to allow more home owners to take advantage of current low interest rates by expanding its two-year old refinancing program, the Home Affordable Refinance Program.
To a joint session of Congress on Thursday, President Obama vowed to help “responsible home owners” refinance their mortgage so that they could reduce their monthly mortgage payments. It’s “a step that can put more than $2,000 a year in a family’s pocket, and give a lift to an economy still burdened by the drop in housing prices,” Obama told Congress last week.
The Home Affordable Refinance Program was originally designed to help home owners who could not qualify for loans from private companies. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would then offer loans at lower rates to borrowers with mortgage debts up to 125 percent of the value of their homes.
Through the end of June, the companies had refinanced only 838,000 mortgages through the program with critics mostly blaming the low number on falling home values and strict income requirements that reduced the number of eligible borrowers.
The Obama administration announced late last week that they plan to issue new guidelines for the program in the coming weeks, The New York Times reported.
Source: “White House Plans Effort to Refinance Mortgages,” The New York Times (Sept. 9, 2011)
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