Principal Reduction Alternative applications for Underwater FHA mortgages start today
A year and a half after the unveiling of Home Affordable Mortgage Plan (HAMP) and the federal government finally reacted to the significant number of underwater mortgages (distressed mortgages worth less than the unpaid balance). It is referred to as the Principal Reduction Alternative (PRA) aspect of that same Home Affordable Mortgage Plan legislation.
Automated Valuation Model and calculation of Net Present Value in a Mortgage Modification
The Rest Report calculates the Net Present Value of a distressed mortgage and it’s underlying value. One half of this calculation is the AVM, or Automated Valuation Model. The Rest Report pulls the current value of your property from a variety of online sources.
Banks get away with losing their homework again
Banks who participate in the HAMP (Home Affordable Mortgage Program) are supposedly not allowed to foreclose on a distressed homeowner who is negotiating a mortgage modification. Turns out that expectation is voluntary. Turning in my homework was always voluntary too. Wasn’t yours?
US Treasury admits HAMP effectiveness is a mirage
Several weeks ago I watched Treasury Secretary Geithner dodge questions about the mortgage modification mess that is HAMP (Home Affordable Mortgage Plan). The week before I watched as Press Secretary Robert Gibbs do the same thing. It is that the mortgage modification law exists, but the federal government, and Cobgress, are going to do nothing to enforce it. Yjis past week it was made clear that the nation’s Judicial Branch was moving to pick up the slack.
US District Court Judge rules that negotiating a Mortgage Modification is mandatory
Once again, Mandelman writes about the little guy beating the bank into a mortgage modification. The legalese will kill the avrage homeowner, but the effect is stunning. Get the REST Report, prove submission of your supporting documents, and you can do your own mortgage modification. The subject in the article did, is doing, just that. Judges are progressively recognizing that the REST Report, in addition to a complete mortgage modification file, is proof in a foreclosure defense.
Protect against your bank sandbagging you in your Mortgage Modification
Perhaps sandbagging distressed mortgage owners is exactly what the lenders had in mind. We’re now reading countless media posts about distressed homeowners giving up on mortgage modification negotiations because the banks wait months, approaching years, to meaningfully negotiate mortgage modification. We’re guessing the banks figure that the stress of unknown mortgage payments is greater on the beleaguered homeowner than the banks themselves. Wear ‘em down and they’ll give up.
A Different Perspective on Banks reluctance to Mortgage Modification
The final article about the mortgage modification mess reports on the bank’s part in not assisting distressed mortgage owners in mortgage modification. This article in “The Street” finally approaches the real cause. The fact that the author found a mortgage modification company still in business is remarkable by itself.
The REST Report would have mitigated this mortgage modification disaster
An article today in The Street illustrates several current trends in the trials and tribulations of getting a mortgage modification. The family profiled here has been pursuing a mortgage modification for 18 months or so, with no success. This article illustrates without stating the main conclusion any other distressed mortgage owner needs to undertand. For the foreseeable future, you need to pursue your own mortgage modification without any professional assistance. No professional mortgage modification firm, attorney or not, will, nor should they, engage in assisting any distressed homeowner with a mortgage modification.
New York finally holds banks accountable for Good Faith Mortgage Modification Negotiations
It took two and a half years, but finally, New York has taken steps to hold banks and mortgage servicers accountable for their negotiating mortgage modifications in good faith. Lenders and servicers have avoided distressed mortgage owners since the mortgage meltdown at the end of the Bush presidency. Just in the last few months, a few bank administrators have even been caught admitting to this obvious lack of good faith. (Please see the first video on this blog home page.)
REST Report more crucial than ever given Principal Reduction Alternative in the new HAMP
The latest version of HAMP, or the Home Affordable Mortgage Plan, has accomodations for underwater mortgages to have principal reduction accounted for. As Mandelman states, where was it a year ago? As one reads through the details it is even more crucial that the distressed mortgage owner get the REST Report as an indispensable part of their mortgage modification application.
