Home Affordable Modifications Finally Start
In case you haven’t heard, the Treasury Department approved six servicers to begin accepting applications under President Obama’s Home Affordable Loan Modification plan. This means that these servicers can now receive the incentive payments promised to them under the program, which could equate up to $9.9 billion!
What’s important for you, though, is it means their process has been approved by the Treasury Department and they have signed an agreement that binds them to provide loan modifications as described by the Treasury Department’s site.
Who’s involved and how do you apply?
Click on the servicer’s name to go to their web site (they vary widely in quality and helpfulness, but it’s somewhere to start.
1. Chase Home Finance – services J.P. Morgan Chase, Washington Mutual, and EMC mortgages
2. Wells Fargo – services Wells Fargo and possibly Wachovia mortgages
3. CitiMortgage – services CitiBank mortgages
4. GMAC
Who’s Missing from the List?
A couple big names are missing from this list…
For example…Bank of America (who now owns Countrywide), services about 20% of the country’s mortgages. We reported last week they started to offer Home Affordable Refinances and expect to begin offering loan modifications under the program in the next week or so.
Ocwen Financial Corporation. We reported last Wednesday that they had begun offering Home Affordable Modifications and they have. But they haven’t finalized their contract with the Treasury Department yet. While they are taking applications and evaluating homeowner qualification, they cannot receive any incentive payments yet. That shouldn’t matter to you, but that’s why they’re not on this list.
There are several other, smaller servicers still awaiting final Treasury Department approval that have begun accepting applications like Ocwen as well.
What if your servicer isn’t on the list?
Expect them to show up shortly. According to HousingWire,the Treasury Department is working hard to get through a long list of servicers that want to get their programs approved.
If your servicer isn’t on this list, I’d recommend checking out a couple of the sites above to see what they’re requiring. Get all of your paperwork in order so you’ll be ready to go once your lender announces they’re approved. Most of them are requiring pretty standard information like I talked about in my original post about President Obama’s Home Affordable Loan Modification Program.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Just in terms of getting through this mess, wouldn’t it be reasonable to approve B of A before Saxon and Select?