Home Affordable Unemployment Program

Home Affordable Modification Program

The largest program within MHA is the Home Affordable Modification Program . HAMPs goal is to offer homeowners who are at risk of foreclosure reduced monthly mortgage payments that are affordable and sustainable over the long-term.

HAMP was designed to help families who are struggling to remain in their homes and show:

• Documented financial hardship.
• An ability to make their monthly mortgage payments after a modification.

HAMP is a voluntary program that supports servicers efforts to modify mortgages, while protecting taxpayers interests. To protect taxpayers, MHA housing initiatives have payforsuccess incentives. This means that funds are spent only when transactions are completed and only as long as those contracts remain in place. Therefore, funds will be disbursed over many years.

Starting in the summer of 2012, the scope of the program will expand to help even more families in need.

HAMP works by encouraging participating mortgage servicers to modify mortgages so struggling homeowners can have lower monthly payments and avoid foreclosure. It has specific eligibility requirements for homeowners and includes strict guidelines for servicers. The program includes incentives for homeowners, servicers, and investors to encourage successful mortgage modifications.

Before HAMP, there was no standard approach among loan servicers or investors about how to help homeowners who wanted to keep making payments, but needed mortgage assistance.

How The Program Works

A homeowner who is unemployed and requested assistance under the HAMP must be considered for Home Affordable Unemployment Program and if qualified must be given a plan before being considered for Home Affordable Modification Plan. If the borrower is approved for HUP, then payments should be reduced to no more than 31% of his or her monthly income, or suspended entirely for 12 or more months for the first mortgage. The payment reduction or suspension lasts until the end of the forbearance period or until the borrower finds a new job.

How Loan Repayment Plans Work

If you have missed payments on your mortgage, then you know that the lender will be asking you to pay all the past due amounts plus penalties. If all that money is not paid in full, then foreclosure may be forthcoming.At this point, paying a lump sum of all the delinquent mortgage payments is just not financially possible. A repayment plan will let you repay part of the delinquency each month, along with your regular monthly installment.

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What Is Making Home Affordable

Making Home Affordable is a program that was launched in 2009 as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the federal government’s response to the subprime mortgage crisis. The aim of MHA was to aid eligible homeowners by lowering their monthly mortgage payments to a more manageable level.

Making Home Affordable was designed to stabilize the housing market and prevent foreclosures. The reduction in payments may be accomplished either through refinancing or modification of the existing mortgage. The administration of President Barack Obama initially allocated $75 billion to the program.

Who May Be Eligible

All homeowners in financial hardship who:

• Are currently unemployed and eligible for unemployment benefits
• Are delinquent or in danger of falling behind on their mortgage payments
• Hold mortgage loans originated on or before January 1, 2009
• Owe up to $729,750 on their primary residence
• Have not benefited previously from HAMP modification

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Overview Of The Program

Home Affordable Unemployment Program is a government sponsored program that provides relief to the unemployed homeowners for up to one year. HUP is a complementary program to the Home Affordable Modification Program which allows certain homeowners to modify their mortgage. Under HUP a loan services must provide a forbearance period to qualified homeowners prior to evaluating them for HAMP. During the forbearance period, the borrowers monthly mortgage payment is reduced or suspended.

How To Get Help Paying Rent

If you need help paying your rent, contact your state housing finance agency or your local public housing agency office. You may qualify for government programs to get help with your rent payments.

• If you need immediate, emergency assistance
• To find out what other help may be available for you locally

Even if you don’t qualify for rental assistance through these agencies, they may be able to refer you to a community organization that can help. You may also search for and contact community or nonprofit organizations in your area. They may help you directly or offer you referral information.

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Identify And Complain About Housing Discrimination

Housing discrimination happens when a housing provider gets in the way of a person renting or buying housing because of their

• Familial status

A housing provider that discriminates against someone could be a landlord or a real estate management company. It could also be a lending institution like a bank or other organization that aids in the homebuying process.

Housing discrimination is prohibited by the Fair Housing Act. Discrimination covered by the Act can take many forms beyond just raising prices or lying about availability. For example, the Act addresses wheelchair access in some newer properties. Learn what the Fair Housing Act covers, how to complain, and how the investigation process works.

Home Affordable Unemployment Program

The Home Affordable Unemployment Program is a government program that is designed to provide a help to those that are having trouble making their mortgage payments and they are unemployed. Here are the basics of the Home Affordable Unemployment Program and how it works.

Home Affordable Unemployment Program

This program is an extension of the Making Home Affordable Program. The basic idea behind the program is that if you are unemployed and you are unable to continue making your mortgage payments, your mortgage lender may be able to suspend your payments or reduce them for a certain amount of time. The minimum amount of time that you will have with this program is three months of suspended payments. Depending on the situation, you can get a longer amount of suspended payments. During the time that you are receiving suspended payments, you have to be looking for a job. Once you receive new employment, you are not going to be able to continue to get suspended mortgage payments.

Eligibility Requirements

In order to get involved in this program, you are going to have to meet certain eligibility requirements. For one thing, your mortgage payment has to be more than 31 percent of your gross monthly income. This percentage is what the government considers to be difficult to afford for most homeowners.

How to Apply

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Unemployment Insurance Can Help First

The national unemployment rate was 5.4 percent in April, a far drop from the 10 percent seen in 2009, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That lower rate, however, could be enough to keep first-time homebuyers up at night, or even prevent them from buying a home. Unemployment insurance could make that decision a lot easier, along with preventing foreclosures.

The insurance can be bought by home buyers, or offered for free or at a low cost by mortgage lenders and home sellers – including new home builders – as a way to entice buyers and help put their mind at ease in case they’re worried about losing their jobs and not being able to afford their home during an extended job hunt. Real estate agents, realty groups and housing agencies also offer it.

“This has been around for some time, usually used in period when people are worried about the direction of the economy and their job prospects,” says Bruce Ailion, a real estate agent at RE/MAX Town and Country in Atlanta.

It’s more widely used by new home builders because their homes cost 20 percent more than a resale home, and buyers are typically moving up 40-50 percent in price to move so a new home buyers is paying substantially more per month than their prior home, Ailion says.

“The decision to move and to buy new is often in response to a new job or promotion,” he says. “Both of which are more subject to reversal than a steady job.”

Health Insurance & Employee Benefit Plans

The Employee Benefits Security Administration , a division of the U.S. Department of Labor, provides assistance with pension, health and other employee benefit plans after job loss. You can find more information at Employee Benefits Security Administration or call 866-444-3272.

The Texas Department of Insurance offers information that can help you find health insurance coverage. Find more information at Texas Health Options or call 855-839-2427.

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Housing Finance Agency Innovation Fund

References

Learn About The Housing Choice Voucher Program

The Housing Choice Voucher Program is a program from the Department of Housing and Urban Development . It helps families with a low income, seniors, and people with disabilities pay for rental housing.

You can find housing, including single-family homes, townhouses, and apartments. Housing Choice vouchers can pay for all or part of the rent.

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Ongoing Services Of Making Home Affordable

The Treasury Department notes that more than 1.8 million families were helped directly through HAMP, and that the MHA program “set new standards that have transformed the mortgage industry, resulting in more than 3.9 million private-sector mortgage modifications through October 2013. Together, public and private efforts have helped more than 7 million Americans get mortgage assistance to prevent avoidable foreclosures.”

Today, the MHA program maintains a website called makinghomeaffordable.gov and a hotline at 888-995-HOPE to help families learn about their options for mortgage help.

It offers FAQs and glossaries, and advice on finding a housing counselor, applying for mortgage assistance, dealing with mortgage companies, avoiding scams, and more. It also makes makes counselors available by phone to “help you understand your options, design a plan to suit your individual situation and prepare your application.”

It also gives homeowners already in a HAMP modification a series of resources to help them understand the terms of their modifications, get incentives for timely payments, and manage their payments.

Housing Choice Voucher Eligibility

Your local public housing agency decides if you are eligible for a Housing Choice voucher based on:

• Your annual gross income
• Whether you qualify as a family, a senior, or a person with a disability
• U.S. citizenship or eligible immigration status
• Your family’s size
• Other local factors

In general, your family’s income may not exceed 50% of the median income for the county or metropolitan area.

Each state or city may have different eligibility rules for housing programs. Contact your local PHA to learn about your eligibility for Housing Choice vouchers.

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Amount Of Mortgage Assistance Provided By The Home Affordable Unemployment Program

Homeowners who are approved through the program and who receive a mortgage forbearance will have their monthly mortgage payments greatly reduced. The exact amount will vary, but in general their monthly payment will be lowered to no more than 31 percent of their gross monthly income, even if it just unemployment insurance, during the forbearance period.

If someone does find a new job during this timeframe, borrowers must inform their lender and mortgage servicer if they find work during the forbearance period. If a borrower is unable to find a new job and if they are still unemployed at the end of the mortgage forbearance period, their personal situation and financial condition will be reviewed to determine if they can get an extension as part of the Home Affordable Unemployment Program. Or they may be qualified for other support from the government, such as free foreclosure counseling or they may be eligible for a HAMP modification.

It is critical that during the forbearance period that you continue to make your monthly mortgage payments on time. If you think you may be late or have difficulty in making a payment, call your servicer as soon as you think it may occur. Do not wait. If you miss one of these monthly bills or are late, it may jeopardize your continued eligibility as part of the Home Affordable Unemployment Program.

Apply For Public Housing

To apply, contact your local PHA. Heres what you can expect during the application process.

Either you or a PHA representative will fill out your written application. Your PHA usually needs to collect the following information to determine eligibility:

• Names of all people who would be living in the unit, their sex, date of birth, and relationship to the family head
• Your present address and telephone number
• Conditions that might help your family’s reception into the program more quickly, including:
• Current residency in substandard housing

Someone from your PHA may visit you in your home to interview you and your family members to see how you manage the upkeep of your current home.

After collecting this information, the PHA representative should describe the public housing program. They’ll go over its requirements and answer any questions you may have.

A PHA representative will ask for documents including birth certificates and tax returns. The PHA uses these documents to verify the information on your application. The PHA may also talk to your employer and your other references. You will be asked to sign a form to authorize the release of information to the PHA.

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How To Apply For Haup

If you think you may meet these criteria, and if you think the program can help you, interested borrowers should contact their bank, lender, and/or mortgage servicer and ask about this program. they should ideally look into a mortgage forbearance early-, while you are unemployed and looking for work. Their mortgage servicer must be participating in the Home Affordable Modification Program . Most lenders and servicers do participate in the federal government program, so it is just a matter of asking them.

Sell Your House Before It Goes Into Foreclosure

If youve lost your job, are unable to make the mortgage payments, and have tried everything else, its time to sell your house. Thats better than seeing it get taken away from you in foreclosure.

Selling your house the traditional way can be expensive and time-consuming. Once you add up the costs of cleaning and repainting, finishing home improvement projects, staging your home, and hiring a real estate agent, selling your home can seem like a huge hassle.

But now theres an easier way. Contact HomeVestors for a free, no-obligation offer to buy your home as-is. That way, you can sell your house, get a fresh start, and look for a new job with cash in hand.

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Search By Type Of Program

There are three main types of affordable rental housing that are supported by HUD:

• Privately owned, subsidized housing in which landlords are paid by the government to offer reduced rents to low-income tenants. Search for an apartment and apply directly at the rental management office.
• For complaints about subsidized housing, call the Multifamily Housing Complaint Line at .

If you have trouble contacting your local public housing agency, contact your local HUD field office for help.

If you’re a landlord, learn how you can participate in the Housing Choice Voucher Program.

Financial Overhaul: How Do I Get Mortgage Modifications After Losing A Job

Financial Overhaul: How Do I Get Mortgage Modifications After Losing a Job?

The economic misery that began with the 2007-2008 housing market meltdown has taken a heavy toll on millions of Americans. Housing prices are only now beginning to recover from large losses and unemployment remains stubbornly high. Losing a job is a problem losing your job and your house is a crisis. The federal government has stepped in with a couple of programs that offer hope.

Loan Modifications

A lender may agree to a temporary or permanent mortgage loan modification — a change to a mortgage’s interest rate, outstanding balance or number of payments. Financial advisor Frank Poschinger explains that “banks and other lenders may agree to loan modifications in order to avoid foreclosing on properties, especially if borrowers can show financial hardships that were beyond their control.” The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, sponsors several programs aimed at facilitating mortgage modifications. Two of these programs provide a pathway for unemployed homeowners to receive a mortgage modification. Poschinger adds, “Your mortgage servicer may offer forbearance options for those who do not qualify for the government programs — contact your servicer directly for more information.”

Home Affordable Unemployment Program

Applying for UP

Hardest Hit Fund

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