SellingNorthernNV

The federal government’s guidelines for standardizing short sales that were released at the end of 2009 have been in effect since April 5, 2010. These guidelines are an addition to Obama’s Making Home Affordable program which was rolled out in early 2009. The new sub-program called the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternative program (or HAFA) is designed to offer an alternative solution in the form of a standardized short sale for homeowner’s who meet minimum eligibility for the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), but are still unable or unwilling to work out a plan to stay in their home.

Although the new program is voluntary for lender’s to participate it, the program does offer some incentives to lender’s who do decide to participate. As a result, the majority of lender’s are electing to participate. Some of the major lenders include; Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo, CitiMortgage, and many larger and smaller lenders. A complete list of lender’s participating can be found on the Making Home Affordable website.

How Does this Benefit You?

One of the biggest problems when going through a short sale is the time it takes to get a short sale approved. Outside of the HAFA program, most lenders will not even consider starting the short sale process until you receive an offer on the property. After which, it can take anywhere from 3-6 months (depending on the lender) to receive an approval. Under the HAFA program, this is no longer the case.

Under the HAFA program, your lender will determine the Fair Market Value (FMV) of your property, determine what they will need to net based on this FMV, and then issue you an approval letter which will tell you the minimum offer amount they will accept. In addition to doing processing the short sale up front, the program also includes standardized forms and specific timeline in order to ensure the process is completed in the shortest time possible. The program also allows borrower’s to receive $3,000 at closing to help with their moving expenses and requires that borrowers must be fully released from any future liability for the debt of the loan. This is not always the case in many short sales done outside of HAFA.

Like most of the programs out there, the HAFA will not be a one size cures all. However, as long as lenders continue to participate in the program, is should bring assistance to many homeowners who otherwise wouldn’t have any alternative but foreclosure.

Should you have any questions or need further information,
please don’t hesitate to contact me, (775) 220-1630
Or visit my website: www.SellingHomesinReno.com

Joshua Talayka
NAR designated: Short Sale & Foreclosure Resource
Chase International
Office: 775 850 5900
Toll Free: 877 922 5900
Cell: 775 220 1630
Fax: 775 850 5901
985 Damonte Ranch Pkwy, Ste. 110
Reno, Nevada (NV) 89521

Legal disclaimer: I am not an attorney. The information contained in this article/blog is intended to provide general information on the subject and not to provide any legal representation or legal advice in any means. You should not act upon this or any information without first seeking independent legal counsel.

Tags: Chase International, debt forgiveness, Foreclosure, HAFA, HAMP, Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternative, Making Home Affordable, Nevada, NV, Real Estate, reno, short sale, Talayka, www.sellinghomesinreno.com, www.sellingnorthernnv.com

This entry was posted by Josh Talayka on Friday, August 6th, 2010 at 2:27 pm and is filed under HAFA, Loan Modification Series. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.