Finishing Making Home Affordable…

After six months, nearly 30 phone calls, and countless hours on the phone…

We were rejected for the Making Home Affordable Program through Bank of America.

Our application was ‘lost’ and we were asked to reapply. We applied with the exact same numbers we used 6 months ago but this time, we were denied. The program requires homeowners to spend 37% or more of their gross income on their mortgage to qualify and does not include the second mortgage in calculating the percentage. The monthly payment for our first mortgage is 36% of our gross income. I was disappointed with how close we were until the Bank of America representative (a supervisor) told me that even if we were at 37%, we would have been turned down anyway. She said that Bank of America isn’t likely to approve homeowners for the Making Home Affordable Program unless they are closer to 40-45%.

I asked her if we could refinance and she immediately said no. Not because we are upside-down on our home, but because refinancing requires homeowners to spend less than 33% of their gross income on BOTH mortgages combined.

I have a feeling there are a lot of homeowners stuck in this percentage window.

I’m disappointed to be stuck with a high interest mortgage, but we’re fortunate to be able to ‘afford’ our payment and we aren’t at risk of losing our home. We’re going to hold on, take responsibility for our poor decisions, and move forward.

Posted by Beks on March 15, 2010 at 5:00 AM in Making Home Affordable Program | 6 Comments »
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Mysti responded:
Posted: March 15th, 2010 at 7:03 am
I am sorry that for all the aggravation, you weren’t even able to do it. How annoying!

We were not eligible for the program because our mortgage isn’t owned by Sallie or Freddie. And unless we could come up with around 10k in cash for closing….no refi for us. We are also in a situation where we can “afford” the payment (at 7.5%!!) but wish we weren’t in this situation.

Why do banks make it all or nothing? You either have to be REALLY bad off, or you get nada.
chitown responded:
Posted: March 15th, 2010 at 11:47 am
Unfortunately, I don’t think the majority of these programs are really helping people.
Alison@This Wasn't In The Plan responded:
Posted: March 15th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
We’re in that same category, spending more than we really would like to on our mortgage payments, but not having trouble paying it each month.

The worst thing is that every few weeks we receive a letter in the mail from BofA telling us that we should give them a call because we could be eligible for such programs. We did call the very first time we got this letter and they pretty much laughed at us. We weren’t behind on our payments so why on earth would we need any assistance? But why must they keep sending this letter?
Susan responded:
Posted: March 16th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
A friend of mine just re-fied her interest only, adjustable rate mortgage using the above program. When the appraiser came, she had comparables for him plus all the receipts for the capital improvements she had made. I don’t know their financial situation, but she definately feels blessed. So, it is working for some people. She and her husband are both employed, too.
Sarah responded:
Posted: March 26th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Have you contacted another bank? Our mortgage is through Chase and we have really enjoyed doing business with them. Also, Wells Fargo has made us an offer (one of our cars is financed with them) to reduce our percentage rate to 4.25% for 15 years, something that we would gladly do even though the payment would be about $200 higher per month. They told us that it was based mainly off of our credit score. We want to do it but we’re waiting to pay down some more debt before we take on a higher payment.

BOA is awful, in our opinion. They screwed me over about 7 years ago and now I have trouble getting a checking account. My husband had a checking, savings and credit card with them and we constantly had problems. We closed all the accounts last month but instead of closing them, they zeroed them out and are trying to charge us fees for not maintaining the minimum balance and then interest on top of that! I hate BOA.
Gilda responded:
Posted: June 11th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
We just got turned down by BOA also. I really hate this bank and hope they go under one day. They only rated three stars (1-5 stars) at Bankrate.com which is rated as “performing” and I have seen them rated as low as a “D”.

They didn’t even notify us they had been turned down for the Making Home Affordable program. I had to keep calling and calling until they said, oh, yeah…we turned you down.

I would like to complain to my congressman or senator but they are both a joke.

I think BOA are a bunch of crooks, and this whole Making Home Affordable program should be investigated.

They should definitely include the second mortage on the home. Why do they think they call it a second mortgage, anyway.

Call me steamed.