RIVERSIDE CA, February 22 (FreeRateUpdate.com) – Obama produces yet another foreclosure help program limited to the 5 hardest hit foreclosure states. Friday February 19, 2010 it was reported on CNBC.com that this new program will be additional help to “underwater” borrowers and could even give home to unemployed households. This could help a lot of homeowners here in the 
Inland Empire where we have been hit hard by unemployement and foreclosures. The new program for these 5 states, California, Florida, Nevada, Michigan, and Arizona is called “Troubled Asset Relief Program” (TARP) and is expected to increase the number of successful loan modifications for these five states. TARP was created in 2008 with the Obama administration in an effort to help stabilize the economy and curb the housing crisis. This new program is supposed to help homeowners who are unemployed avoid foreclosure. The details haven’t been published yet and we don’t know if there is a list of participating lenders or if it is only government bailed out lenders who must participate in this program.
With loan modifications being difficult to obtain, could this program really help? I don’t know, anything is worth a try if you want to keep your home. We know that under the Making Homes Affordable loan modification program by the Administration homeowners HAD to be employed to be considered for a permanent loan modification and with so many out of work and losing their homes, I personally hope that this new program can help. I guess we will have to wait and see if the proof is in the pudding.
However, this program isn’t excatly helping distressed homeowners directly, what is going to be happening is that this program has been allowed $1.5 billion dollars in funding that will be allocated to the mortgage lenders, banks, state agencies and the like to reduce their fees that is normally charged to homeowners, thus reducing homeowners charges. The draw for homeowners facing foreclosure is that this is supposed to increase loan modfications and reduce interest rates. But isn’t that was supposed to be happening with the Obama HAMP program???? Hmmmm is this another half baked attempt by the government to look like they are trying tohelp homeowners or is this just another way for them to bail out these mortgage companies without the bad press?
We will keep you updated.