I’ve been fielding calls about the HAFA program for the last month and it’s so unfortunate that the “powers that be” decided to market this program so heavily but did not decide to use their “power” to inform the public. Here’s a quick run down of the qualifications:

• You must be 60 days behind
• Your home must be owner occupied (you can move out due to job transfer but not to “move up”)
• You must have gotten your loan before January 1, 2009

But the biggest kicker here is that the banks are doing this VOLUNTARILY! Meaning they don’t have to do this, so if you have the following types of loans, you are out of luck:

• FHA
• Fannie Mae (which actually administers HAFA!)
• Freddie Mac
• VA
• Ginny Mae
• Some Private Label loans

That’s about 70% of the loans out there.  When you get a loan at Bank of America for example, they sell the loan to an investor and keep the rights to collect the payment from you.  The investor is usually one of these companies above.  That’s where the problem is.

We don’t even get to talk about the “move out money” if you have a fannie mae loan.

How do you find out what type of loan you have?

You could simply call your servicer/bank and ask or you can call the institutions themselves and ask.