Budgeting Your Project

What Can I Do When My House Value Has Dropped Over One Hundred Thousand Dollars?

Through decades, Americans have begun to expect that their homes would always steadily increase in value, or “equity.” Unfortunately, since late-2006 many homes are now worth much less than what’s owed to them, with a commensurate loss of equity. If your home is worth less than you owe and you’d like to sell or refinance, some options are now offered. But time may be the ideal cure for healing your house’s loss of equity.

Waiting Things Out

With the industry crash many homeowners now own houses with mortgages exceeding what these homes are worth. If you’re able to afford the payments, however, today’s best remedy for handling steep home equity losses will be patience in waiting for dwelling values to finally rebound.

Underwater Mortgage Refinancing

Before, refinancing homes value less than their mortgage accounts (“underwater mortgages”) has been incredibly difficult, if not impossible. However, for homeowners with submerged mortgages owned by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) can make sense. Underneath HARP, eligible homeowners may refinance into lower interest rate loans and reduce their monthly payments. For homeowners using fixed-rate mortgages. No maximum loan-to-value (LTV) limits exist for HARP, meaning underwater mortgages may qualify for refinancing.

Underwater Mortgage Modification

HARP is a portion of this government’s Earning Home Economic app, which also includes mortgage modification options for eligible homeowners. Such as HARP, Making Home Affordable is limited to mortgages owned by Fannie or Freddie. However, some large private lenders also offer their own mortgage modification programs. With mortgage loan modification, you are asking your lender to forgive or put aside a part of your mortgage loan to more closely align it with your home’s real value.

Additional Alternatives

For homeowners, short sales and deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure (DILs) are all choices when dealing with submerged mortgages. A short sale is a home sale for much less than is owed on it. A DIL involves giving your house’s deed to your lender in exchange for it not foreclosing on your mortgageloan. Most private lenders offer their very own short sale or deed-in-lieu applications. Additionally, Fannie and Freddie-owned mortgages may qualify for special Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA) short sale and DIL applications.

Eligibility and Approval

All lender-related underwater mortgage remedies have eligibility and acceptance requirements. By way of example, homeowners with submerged mortgages may be asked to demonstrate financial hardship to meet the requirements for mortgage modification, short sales or deeds-in-lieu. Additionally, homeowners looking to refinance underwater mortgages generally must have on-time payment histories for six to 12 months prior to refinancing. Last, homeowners with additional charges or home equity type loans sometimes experience difficulty like such loans in a mortgage refinance or modification.

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