So B of A has a good site to answer questions and concerns and foreclosure alternatives, it is, http://homeloanhelp.bankofamerica.com/en/home-affordable-foreclosure.html. Fannie and Freddie are now on board with HAFA they roll it out 8/1/10 but some servicers may allow for approvals now, it is a great tool in short sales and should make dealing with the banks and the 2nds a bit more straightforward.

As we all learn about the new HAFA rules and processes what I have found to be most interesting is that it is supposed to make our processing of short sales streamline yet most of the banks do not have a clear process or team in place that knows how to do this.  Some of the banks run the short sale HAFA first BUT you have to wait for an offer, some will allow you to switch from regular short sale to HAFA and B of A qualified my client but we later found out that the investor does NOT participate!  While the intent is good I think it will be a short while before any of the banks have a clear process and procedure that allows us to really make this thing smooth!

Best advice is to find out who the investor is and check it with the list of participating lenders.  There are also forms that are required to be sent yet not one lender has asked me for the forms.

As I learn more I will post more but for now the HAFA process seems unorganized and confusing too many.  Wells Fargo seems to be the only bank with a decent grasp on it!

The relocation fee to the seller is $3000, this money is sent by the lender to escrow and disbursed at close of escrow!  The 2nd lenders are getting 6% or 6k whichever is lessor.  These are ALREADY changes to the initial guides to this program, hard to keep up but so far it is all good for the seller!

Here is a preliminary list of lenders, of course I expect more will be added and we hope the process is streamlined and uniform once lender’s particiapte.  Most lender’s are still training and working out the details, Wells Fargo seems to be the most knowledgeable and the negotiators are very informative.

Allstate Mortgage Loans & Investments, Inc.
American Home Mortage Servicing, Inc.
AMS Servicing, LLC
Aurora Loan Services LLC
Bank of America, N.A.
Bank United
Bay Federal Credit Union
Bayview Loan Servicing, LLC
CCO Mortgage
Carrington Mortgage Services, LLC
Central Florida Educators Federal Credit Union
Central Jersey Federal Credit Union
CitiMortgage, Inc.
Citizens First Wholesale Mortgage Co.
Countrywide Home Loans Servicing LP
CUC Mortgage Corporation
DuPage Credit Union
EMC Mortgage Corporation
Farmers State Bank
First Bank
First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Port Angeles
First Keystone Bank
Franklin Credit Management Corporation
Glass City Federal Credit Union
GMAC Mortgage LLC
Great Lakes Credit Union
Green Tree Servicing LLC
Harleysville National Bank & Trust Company
Hillsdale County National Bank
HomEq Servicing
Home Financing Center Inc.
Home Loan Services, Inc.
Horicon Bank
IBM Southeast Employees Federal Credit Union
IC Federal Credit Union
J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, NA
Lake City Bank
Lake National Bank
Litton Loan Servicing
Los Alamos National Bank
Marix Servicing, LLC
Members Mortgage Company, Inc
Mission Federal Credit Union
Members Mortgage Company, Inc.
Metropolitan National Bank
MorEquity, Inc.
Mortgage Center, LLC
Mortgage Clearing Corporation
National City Bank
Nationstar Mortgage LLC
Oakland Municipal Credit Union
Ocwen Financial Corporation, Inc.
OneWest Bank
ORNL Federal Credit Union
PennyMac Loan Services, LLC
PNC Bank, National Association
Purdue Employees Federal Credit Union
Qlending, Inc.
Quantum Servicing Corporation
RG Mortgage Corporation
Residential Credit Solutions
RoundPoint Mortgage Servicing Corporation
Saxon Mortgage Services
Schools Financial Credit Union
SEFCU
Select Portfolio Servicing
Servis One Inc.,dba BSI Financial Services, Inc
ShoreBank
Stanford Federal Credit Union
Technology Credit Union
United Bank Mortgage Corporation
U.S. Bank National Association
Vantium Capital, Inc.
Wachovia Mortgage, FSB
Wachovia Bank, NA
Wells Fargo Bank, NA
Wescom Central Credit Union
Wilshire Credit Corporation
Yadkin Valley Bank

Latest housing plan likely to help just a few
White House expands efforts to halt foreclosures after seeing little progress
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White House announces more help for homeowners
March 26: In an acknowledgement that the $75 billion dollar mortgage bailout has fallen short, the government on Friday announced plans to expand the program to target those homeowners who owe more than their homes are worth. CNBC’s Diana Olick reports.
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By John W. Schoen
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updated 10:57 a.m. PT, Fri., March. 26, 2010

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Three years after the housing bust sent foreclosures rates soaring, the White House has gone back to the drawing board to try to keep another 8 million homeowners in their homes.

But a series of enhancements to the Obama administration’s year-old foreclosure relief plan announced Friday does little to attack the fundamental logjams that have plagued a program designed to modify loans to create more affordable payments.

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As a result, the latest changes likely will help relatively few borrowers, according to those briefed on the program.

“We continue to tinker around the edges of foreclosure prevention,” said John Taylor, president of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, who testified Thursday on Capitol Hill about the program’s failings.

“We rush to give banks tax breaks, but we dawdle to help homeowners who through no fault of their own lost their jobs because of the economic crisis or bought defective loans that caused the economic crisis.”

When the pace of U.S. foreclosures began rising in 2007, the hardest hit were borrowers who had been sold subprime loans that reset to unaffordable levels. As the housing market cratered and the recession deepened, the problem spread to other groups, including those who lost their jobs or saw the value of their homes fall below what they owed on their mortgage.

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The changes announced Friday are intended to help those groups. Lenders and mortgage servicers will be required to offer three to six months of temporary relief for borrowers who have lost their jobs.

Mortgage companies participating in the existing Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), also will be required to consider cutting the amount borrowers owe, for which they would be paid an incentive from the $75 billion set aside to fund the HAMP program. “They’re trying,” said Helen Raynaud, vice president of national grants for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. “But a lot of the aspects are still voluntary for the servicers to participate.”

Additional incentives are being offered to lenders and servicers that cut payments or eliminate second mortgages — a key roadblock in many loan modifications. But unless lenders and servicers suddenly increase the pace of loan modifications, the cost of those incentives will likely remain small. So far, the government has paid out only about $50 million under the HAMP program.

After the Bush administration’s first foreclosure relief plan, Hope Now, failed to make a dent in the rising foreclosure rate, the Obama administration a year ago announced the HAMP program to try to head off the widening crisis. The plan originally was expected to save between 3 million and 4 million homes. So far, of 1.1 million homeowners who have signed up, only 170,000 have won permanent loan modifications.

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To be sure, the latest changes will help boost that number. But those who have looked at the new guidelines say the numbers helped likely will still be counted in the hundreds of thousands. As many as 8 million homeowners are at risk of losing their homes in the next two years.

“We remain dubious about government mortgage modification efforts,” wrote Jaret Seiberg, an analyst with Concept Capital’s Washington Research Group. “So far none have lived up to expectations, and we see little reason to believe the latest effort will turn out any different.”

Part of the problem lies with the scope of the crisis. Three years after the housing bubble burst, the number of homeowners falling behind on their mortgages continues to rise. On Thursday, U.S. banking regulators reported that the number of seriously delinquent mortgages jumped in the fourth quarter, led by a sharp increase among the most creditworthy borrowers.

CONTINUED : Mired mortgage mess

Some 13.6 percent of all homeowners with mortgages — more than one in seven — are behind in their payments, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. It was the seventh consecutive quarterly rise.

Meanwhile, millions of homeowners who were sold “pay-option” adjustable mortgages during the housing boom face the prospect of big jumps in monthly payments this year and next. Millions more are “underwater,” owing more than their home is worth.

The mortgage mess remains mired in the complex financial innovation that created the hundreds of billions of dollars of mortgage-backed bonds that financed the housing bubble. That has created an equally complex quagmire of multiple investors holding pieces of an individual homeowner’s mortgage. Disagreements over how to value those investments, and how and when to book losses, have stymied the process from the beginning.

“We have to do a real reality check,” said David Berenbaum, chief program officer at the NCRC. “Until we address the underlying problems with this paper — who holds it, how it was originated, how people are accountable and how we can correct this epidemic of foreclosures — our communities’ tax base, as well as the economic climate of the nation, is at risk.”

Rising unemployment has also expanded the crisis to a pool of borrowers who were once among the most creditworthy. But one of the nasty side effects of the loan modification has been that homeowners who see their payments reduced below the original amount can see their credit scores lowered.

“That can hurt them when they go looking for a job,” said Raynaud. “When you get a job offer, employers are looking at credit scores.”

It’s not clear whether Friday’s announcement addresses that problem, said Raynaud.

Brought to you by the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®

March 25, 2010

Dear C.A.R. Member:

I’m gratified to report that late this afternoon, Gov. Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 183, the Homebuyer Tax Credit legislation, into law. His actions today are the result of our efforts in Sacramento over the last several weeks as members and our team in the capital worked for the bill’s passage before it landed on the governor’s desk.

AB 183 will provide $200 million for home buyer tax credits, allocating $100 million for qualified first-time home buyers of existing homes and $100 million for purchasers of new, or previously unoccupied, homes. The eligible taxpayer who purchases a qualified personal residence on and after May 1, 2010, and on or before Dec. 31, 2010, or who purchases a qualified principal residence on and after Dec. 31, 2010, and before Aug. 1, 2011, pursuant to an enforceable contract executed on or before Dec. 31, 2010, will be able to take the allowed tax credit. The credit is equal to the lesser of 5 percent of the purchase price or $10,000, in equal installments over three consecutive years. Under AB 183, purchasers will be required to live in the home for at least two years or forfeit the credit (i.e., repay it to the state).

The positive impact of the federal home buyer tax credit is clear. Nearly 40 percent of first-time home buyers said they would not have purchased a home if the federal tax credit for first-time home buyers was not offered, according to C.A.R. research conducted last year.

The state’s previous home buyer tax credit program was so successful that it ran out of tax credits by the end of June 2009, eight months before it was set to expire and just as housing markets appeared to be turning a corner. Unlike last year’s legislation, AB 183 adds a tax credit for the purchase of an existing home by a first-time home buyer.

AB 183 will significantly contribute to the effort to stimulate jobs-creation within California’s housing market by helping to incentivize first-time home buyers to purchase homes that have been abandoned, foreclosed upon and returned to the lender, or have been sitting on the market for extended periods of time. It is these homes that will require substantial rehabilitation by the new owners, which will in turn generate a tremendous increase in jobs and accessory purchases connected to home improvement activities.

Your Association’s efforts at the state and federal level to help protect private property rights and your right to conduct business are ongoing. This promises to be another busy year in the state legislature and in Washington, D.C.

If you’re not already involved in the political process, I encourage you to do so. You can go to http://www.car.org/governmentaffairs/getinvolved/ for a quick guide to involvement opportunities at the local, state, and national levels.

Sincerely,

Steve Goddard
2010 President
CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®

Tax Credit Deadline: What You Need to Know

Learn the details of the extended tax credit for first-time and move-up home buyers, which runs until April 30, 2010.
By Tracey C. Velt | March 2010

What You Need to Know

As part of its plan to stimulate the U.S. housing market, Congress last fall approved the Extended Home Buyer Tax Credit. This extended the deadline for the First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit from Nov. 30, 2009, to April 30, 2010, and expanded it to include repeat buyers.

What’s the deadline?

To qualify, first-time and repeat buyers must have a binding written contract by April 30 and close by July 1.

How much money is available?

The maximum allowable credit for first-time home buyers is $8,000. The maximum for repeat buyers, also referred to in the legislation as “long-time residents,” is $6,500.

What properties are eligible?

The Extended Home Buyer Tax Credit may be applied to primary residences, including single-family homes, condos, townhomes, and co-ops.

How do buyers get the benefit?

Buyers can apply the credit to their 2009 tax return, filed on or before April 15, 2010; file an amended 2009 return; or apply the credit on their 2010 return, filed on or before April 15, 2011.

Who qualifies?

To qualify as a first-time home buyer, the purchaser or his or her spouse may not have owned a residence during the three years prior to the purchase. To qualify as a repeat buyer, current home owners must have used the home being sold or vacated as a principal residence for five consecutive years within the last eight.

Are there income limits?

The new law raises the income limits for people who purchase homes after Nov. 6, 2009. The full credit will be available to taxpayers with modified adjusted gross incomes up to $125,000, or $225,000 for joint filers. Those with MAGI between $125,000 and $145,000—or $225,000 and $245,000 for joint filers—are eligible for a reduced credit. Those with higher incomes do not qualify.

Free Webinar

Sign up for our free webinar, “Distressed Sales and the Home Buyer Tax Credit.” It takes place March 25, 3 p.m. Eastern. Visit REALTOR.org/realtormag to register

Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program (HAFA)