Fannie Mae reportedly has removed its “ability to pay” requirements from the HARP 2.0 guidelines. That means that families that have suffered from reduced income over the last few years might be able to qualify for the HARP 2.0 program. The program will still require no recent 30 day late payments on mortgages but the income qualifying requirement that tripped up so many people may be going away. This change is especially good news for borrowers who are self employed and have had trouble proving income in recent years. Here is an excerpt from a recent HousingWire article on the subject:
Lenders are no longer required to determine a borrower’s ability to repay a loan when underwriting mortgages for inclusion in Fannie Mae’s HARP 2.0 refinancing channel.
Barclays Capital made that conclusion in its securitized products research report Wednesday.
Barclays said Fannie Mae is adjusting its seller guidelines for HARP 2.0 after discovering the “borrower ability to pay clause” is preventing a large chunk of underwater mortgages from entering the program.
Under the changes, the ability-to-pay clause is no longer considered an underwriting requirement for Fannie’s HARP 2.0 program. Instead, Fannie Mae now stipulates that no debt-to-income calculation is required for these refinancings as long as the borrower’s payment does not increase by more than 20%, according to Barclays Capital.
While the HARP 2.0 program won’t be fully operational for a month or two please contact us in the sidebar now to see if you can qualify for it or another government-backed refinance program.