President Obama Proposes Mortgage Refinancing Plan for Current Homeowners

Current on your existing mortgage payments but unable to refinance? There may be some good news coming your way. According to a recent article on the Wall Street Journal's web site, President Obama is asking Congress to review legislation that would help homeowners, who are up-to-date on payments, refinance their existing mortgages to capitalize on historically low interest rates. This is not the first time that the government was tried to assist homeowners in recent years. The Home Affordable Refinance Programs (aka HARP) was rolled out which sought to help property owners refinance their existing mortgages even if their properties had declined in value. Under HARP, a mortgage must have been guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac and the loan must have been sold to Fannie or Freddie on or before May 31st, 2009. The new proposal would not limit potential refinances to mortgages guaranteed by the two agencies. The single biggest reason why mortgage refinances are denied at this time is the decline in home values over the past few years which have left millions of Americans upside-down in the mortgages.

I will certainly be interesting to see if bipartisan support can be had on this piece of legislation.

Source:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203806504577181652800384514.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

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