Bank of America Starts Principal Reduction Effort

NewsGeni.us

Tuesday, May 8, 2012 — Bank of America has started sending letters to thousands of homeowners in the United States, offering to forgive a portion of the principal balance on their mortgages by an average of $150,000 each.
The reduction for qualifying homeowners could amount to monthly savings of up to 35 percent on mortgage payments, Bank of America said in a news release on Monday evening.
The principal reduction offers from Bank of America Home Loans are the result of a $25 billion settlement agreement earlier this year with 49 state attorneys general as well as federal authorities who had been investigating allegations of abuses over the handling of foreclosures.
“To the extent principal reduction and other modification tools help us turn mortgages headed for possible foreclosure into long-term performing loans, it will be positive for homeowners, mortgage investors and communities,” Ron Sturzenegger, a legacy asset servicing executive, said in the statement.
The bank said it planned to contact more than 200,000 homeowners who could be candidates for the offers, sending letters to a majority of them by the third quarter of this year.
To be eligible for the principal reductions, however, homeowners will have to meet certain criteria, including: having a loan owned or serviced by Bank of America; owing more on the mortgage than their property is worth; and being at least 60 days behind on payments as of the end of January.
In the statement, the bank said it had started making such offers in March to a narrower group of homeowners — those who were already in the process of seeking mortgage modification. The bank estimated that the earlier wave of trial reduction offers to about 5,000 people could amount to more than $700 million in forgiven principal. But homeowners have to make at least three timely payments for the reductions to become permanent.


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From Realty Times of July 13, 2009

Washington Report: Home Affordable Refinance Program by Kenneth R. Harney

The Obama administration's latest expansion of its "home affordable" refinance program, outlined just before the July 4 holiday, could be huge news for tens of thousands of owners whose houses are seriously "underwater," or where they're worth a lot less than the mortgage balance owed on them.

Under the new rules, even where borrowers have negative equities of as much as 25 percent, they may be able to refinance into better loan terms, provided their mortgage is owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

Under the original rules for the program, the cutoff point was just five percent negative equity -- or a "loan to value" (LTV) ratio of 105 percent.

Though an estimated 80,000 owners already have been refinanced by Fannie and Freddie, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner decided that the 105% LTV limit left too many borrowers out of reach.

In some parts of California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida, 40 to 50 percent of home owners are now stuck with negative equities, according to industry estimates. In Las Vegas, 67 percent of owners are underwater.

Zillow.com estimates that nationwide, 22 percent of all owners have negative equity in their properties - many of them by more than five percent.

The newly-expanded "home affordable" program opens the door not only to lower monthly payments for seriously underwater borrowers, but also to the possibility of shorter loan pay-off terms to reduce mortgage principal debts much faster.

Here's an example of how the expanded program could work:

Say your house is currently valued at $240,000, but your mortgage balance is $300,000.

You are underwater by 25 percent.

If your loan is owned or guaranteed by Fannie or Freddie, and you're not behind on your payments, you should be eligible for a "home affordable" refi.

Say your current payments are eighteen hundred sixty dollars a month. By refinancing into a new 30-year, $300,000 loan at five and a quarter percent, you could cut your principal and interest payment to about sixteen hundred sixty a month - a $200 saving.

Or you could shorten your loan term from 30 years to say, 15 years or 20 years at five and an eighth percent. If you could handle the slightly higher monthly payments, you'd accelerate your principal paydown speed, build equity and go from underwater to above water much faster, even without local market value appreciation.

To take advantage, contact your loan servicer to see if your mortgage is owned by Freddie or Fannie. Or you can check online at either fanniemae.com/loanlook, or freddiemac.com/mymortgage.

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