Are you among the millions of U.S. homeowners hit the hardest by the current financial crisis in America? Are you concerned that you can’t make your monthly mortgage payments anymore? If you’re nodding your head, you need to hurry to a financial counselor today and ask about home loan modification vs. FHA refinance.

Loan modification and FHA refinance are helping hundreds of thousands of homeowners prevent foreclosure when they can’t pay their mortgages. Which one is best for you depends mostly on who backs your loan. To learn about your loan insurer, call your lender and ask. Most loans are insured by the FHA, Freddie Mac, or Fannie Mae. None of these three organizations are actual lenders, but they insure the loans and guarantee the full amount of the loan. Doing this lessens the risk for lenders and helps borrowers get lower interest rates.

How can you tell apart an FHA loan and a Fannie or Freddie loan? From the outside, you really can’t. There isn’t much difference between the loans, aside from who happens to insure them. A lot of homeowners don’t even know who insures their loan, and that’s because they rarely need to know that information. When they do need it is when they want to modify their loan to decrease their monthly payments. If your loan is a Fannie or Freddie loan, then you could be eligible for President Obama’s Making Home Affordable mortgage loan modification plan. If you have got an FHA loan, then you should look into the HOPE for Homeowners plan, which is a special FHA plan to refinance mortgages through equity sharing.

Refinancing with HOPE for Homeowners with FHA loans opens up the possibility of refinancing to thousands of individuals who didn’t used to qualify under old refinancing laws. Decreasing house prices have caused a drop in the home equity that people hold, and that drop has made some unable to refinance traditionally. If they have lost enough equity that they no longer have 20% equity, they used to be unable to finance.

The Making Home Affordable plan, in contrast, is not a refinancing program. Instead, it is a loan modification program, which requires participating lenders to follow a standard procedure to lower homeowner’s monthly payments to affordable levels. The plan includes $75 billion of incentives paid out to both lenders and borrowers for successfully modified loans. Modifying loans prevents foreclosure and stabilizes the economy as a whole.

By: Lindsy Emery

 

As things are changing in the economy, you may be looking at your current mortgage and trying to decide whether you should refinance home loan debt now. There are some advantages but before you decide, be sure to ask yourself some of these important questions.

 

Would an Adjustable Interest Rate be Smart?

 

If you are thinking about choosing to refinance home loan with an adjustable interest rate, you may want to rethink the idea. While adjustable interest rates can be a good choice when you are taking out a loan when the rates are elevated, you would be better off in most cases choosing a fixed interest rate. The benefit of the latter choice is that you’ll always know how much each monthly payment is going to be. You don’t have to worry about unexpected increases that you cannot afford. Remember adjustable interest rates are one of the reasons for the current foreclosure crisis in the real estate market.

 

Will You Save Money by Refinancing?

 

Although you could refinance home loan balances to save money, you won’t always be able to cut down your bills this way. You have to look carefully at the details of the refinancing to make sure you will lower your payments. Obviously, you will be spending more in the long-term because of the added years of interest payments above the original terms of the loan. However, you may cut your costs for monthly mortgage payments which could be a huge help if you’re struggling to make those payments now.

 

Is This the Best Time to Refinance?

 

One way to determine if you should consider refinance home loan charges now is by looking at the existing interest rates. When you see those rates start to fall below your current rates, you may want to consider choosing this option. You will save a lot of money even if the interest rate drops by only a couple of percentage points. However, there may be other factors that would make this a bad time to refinance. For example, you may want to avoid refinance home loan if your credit isn’t in tip-top shape. If you have just a few dings on your credit report, you could end up paying a higher interest rate when you refinance and that’s not a good idea. Consider talking to a financial advisor before making the final decision.

 

What Costs Will I Have to Pay?

 

Although you could save money if you refinance home loan debt, you can also look at having to pay some fees upfront. For example, your home will need to be appraised to ensure its value warrants the cost of the loan. You’ll also have to pay closing costs and title fees just as you would otherwise. Occasionally, you can still find lenders who will roll over those expenses into the cost of the loan but that’s only going to cost you more in the long run. Remember you’ll end up paying interest on those fees, too.  

 




By: Julian Lim