Earlier this week President Obama revealed the new changes and details to his revamped Home Affordable Refinance Program or HARP for California homeowners. A few changes have been made to the original HARP program in attempt to remove some of the roadblocks that prevented many people from being able to refinance their home if they’re underwater or upside down on their mortgage. So I want to share with you some of the changes that have been made to determine if you or someone you know could now refinance your home if you’re underwater.

The first thing you should be aware of is that this program is NOT going to help everyone that is upside down. One of the main qualifications is that your loan must be owned by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac and you must have received that loan before June 2009. Now, how do you know if Fannie or Freddie owns your loan? Just give me a call or send me an email and I can look that up for you. If it is owned by them, then it doesn’t matter how far upside down on your mortgage you are or the value of your home, because the loan to value cap has been lifted completely. In addition to that, you won’t need to have an appraisal, and loan fees will be reduced or possibly even eliminated if you are refinancing to a shorter term, like going from a 30 year to a 15 year fixed.

It’s important that your last 6 payments have been made on time, and you can’t have more than 1 late payment in the last 12 months. More details and rate pricing from the banks will be revealed around November 15th, and the banks that I work with are expected to start taking your loan application for this program around December 1st. Also, the program will be available through the end of 2013, but there’s no guarantee that low interest rates will be around that long, so if you, or someone you know who is underwater wants to see if your loan qualifies for the new and improved home affordable refinance program, please give me a call right now. Thanks for watching, and please share this with your friends.