Why Choose
1st Financial Nationwide
For Your Loan Modification?
A Loan Modification can transform your existing loan into a payment you can afford.
With Representation We Can help:
- Lower your interest rate to a comfortable payment you can afford
- Stop foreclosure with a loan modification agreement
- Change the terms of an Option ARM mortgage
- Obtain a principal reduction or forbearance
We're ready to listen, it starts with a call...
Questions about... Home Loan Modification, Mortgage Loan Modification, Bankruptcy Loan Modification, Foreclosure Help, Foreclosure Assistance...click here
How We Support You
Preparing Your Loan Modification Request to capture Bank & Government Support Programs is part of what we do every day!1) Experience - Our executive team comes from the Banking & Financial Services industry, and is highly knowledgeable of the of latest Lender practices for loan modification.
2) Research - Llike the kind we provide here every day. We keep abreast of the trends and events that are changing the mortgage industry DAILY.
3) Forensic Loan Audit by our attorney and audit staff.
4) Attorney Review of Original Loan documents, Your modification proposal, and negotiated terms with the Lender.
5) Experienced Modification Processors that persistently follow up with your Lender DAILY and Weekly to maintain progress on your Case.
6) Automated Systems. We have invested significantly in the latest electronic systems to speed up the review, packaging, and daily communications required to deliver the highest success rates in the industry.
7) URGENCY - We have created our company around a culture of urgency, so that YOU, the Home Owner are protected every step of the way.
This is the Ferguson Difference, and we are happy to serve you.
CALL US TODAY EVERY DAY COUNTS in Loan Modification. The Lenders are over-loaded, SO DONT WAIT.
Obama Help for Homeowners and Other Current Programs
Please CALL US for the latest bank interpretations of the Obama Plan.
Our case-workers are negotiating with the Lenders every day, and we have great insight into both the PROCESS and CRITERIA the Lenders are using to approve modification requests under this program. Read below for real-world interpretations of the program, as heard by our case-workers every day...
Why you may want this program:
FIXED RATE MODIFICATION FOR LIFE OF THE LOAN!!! Many modification programs will try to put your "conversion rate" into another ARM (adjustable rate mortgage). The Obama Plan guidelines mandate that the majority of its program modifications are to be fixed-rate loans. We will inform you of the guidelines and how to meet them, if you wish to apply under this program. By the way, "conversion rate" is the rate your loan converts to after the Bridge Period, which is typically 3-5 years of lower interest rates. (Example: Jane Smith's loan modification was approved for 2% for 5 years, thereafter "converting" to an adjustable rate loan, indexed to the LIBOR Index).
Key Insights: How Lenders decide under Obama Guidelines:
1) Not only about "DTI" (Debt-to-Income). We can explain more, but unlike the banks own internal modification guidelines, "Back-End DTI" is less important under this program, and you need to know exactly how to present your financials and hardship letter.
2) FOCUS IS on Gross Income. Again, we can explain what this means in everyday practice, but suffice it to say that the conversion 31-38% of your gross income as a target payment becomes the key measurement of your acceptance or denial into the Obama Plan guidelines.
With our expertise, industry knowledge, and DAILY management of your modification request, we can assure that your case is positioned for success. We ONLY ACCEPT applications that pass our Bank Decision Criteria Test. We take the key data you provide from your financial and hardship information, run it against the most current Lender key decision criteria, and inform you of the results.
Below, you will find key information about the Obama Plan...
Obama Help for Homeowners:
Main Elements of Borrower Assistance
From CNN / AC360. March 04, 2009
Borrower Support
iv. Incentives to Help Borrowers Stay Current: To provide an extra incentive for borrowers to keep paying on time under the modified loan, the initiative will provide a monthly pay for performance success payment that goes straight towards reducing the principal balance on the mortgage loan.
- As long as the borrower stays current on his or her payments, he or she can get up to $1,000 each year for five years, subject to a de minimis threshold.
- As with the servicer incentives, these borrower incentives are also available for modifications of FHA, VA, or Agriculture Department loans, or refinance loans under the Hope for Homeowners or similar FHA programs.
v. Home Price Decline Payments: To encourage the modification of more mortgages and enable more families to keep their homes, the Administration — together with the FDIC — has developed an innovative payment that provides compensation that can partially offset losses from failed modification when home prices decline, but is structured as a simple cash payment on every eligible loan. The Treasury Department will make payments totaling up to $10 billion to discourage lenders, servicers and investors from opting to foreclose on mortgages that could be viable now out of fear that home prices will fall even further later on. This initiative provides servicers with the security to undertake more mortgage modifications by assuring that if home price declines continue to occur or worsen, investor losses are partially offset. Holders of mortgages modified under the program would be provided with an additional payment on each modified loan, linked to declines in the home price index.
vi. Second Liens: While eligible loan modifications will not require any participation by second lien holders, the program will include additional incentives to extinguish second liens on loans modified under the program, in order to reduce the overall indebtedness of the borrower and improve loan performance. Servicers will be eligible to receive compensation when they contact second lien holders and extinguish valid junior liens (according to a schedule to be specified by the Treasury Department, depending in part on combined loan to value). Servicers will be reimbursed for the release according to the specified schedule, and will also receive an extra $250 for obtaining a release of a valid second lien.
How It Will Be Effective
Protecting Taxpayers and Communities: To protect taxpayers, the Home Affordable Modification programwill focus on sound modifications. No payments will be made unless the modification lasts for at least three months, and all the payments are designed around the principal of “pay for success.” Borrowers, servicers and lenders/investors all have aligned incentives under the program to get successful modifications at an affordable and sustainable level.
Counseling and Outreach to Maximize Participation: Under the plan, the Department of Housing and Urban Development will also make available funding for non-profit counseling agencies to improve outreach and communications, especially to disadvantaged communities and those hardest-hit by foreclosures and vacancies. Borrowers with high debt-to-income levels must agree to use counseling services.
Creating Proper Oversight and Tracking Data to Ensure Program Success: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be responsible – subject to Treasury’s oversight and the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s conservatorship – for monitoring compliance by servicers with the program. Every servicer participating in the program will be required to report standardized loan-level data on modifications, borrower and property characteristics, and outcomes. The data will be pooled so the government and private sector can measure success and make changes where needed. Treasury will meet quarterly with the FDIC, the Federal Reserve, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Federal Housing Finance Agency to ensure that the program is on track to meeting its goals.
Limiting the Impact of Foreclosure When Modification Doesn’t Work: Servicers will receive incentives to take alternatives to foreclosures, like short sales or taking of deeds in lieu of foreclosure. For those borrowers unable to maintain homeownership, even under the affordable terms offered, the plan will provide incentives to encourage families and servicers to avoid the costly foreclosure process and minimize the damage that foreclosure imposes on financial institutions, borrowers and communities alike. Servicers will be eligible for a payment of $500 and can make reimbursable payments up to $1000 to extinguish other liens, and borrowers are eligible for a payment of $1500 in relocation expenses in order to effectuate short sales and deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure. Such methods reduce vacancy, neighborhood decline, and overall costs for financial institutions, borrowers, and affected communities alike.
Treasury will also work with the GSEs to provide data on foreclosed properties to streamline the process of selling or redeveloping them, thereby ensuring that they do not remain vacant and unsold.
B. Clear and Consistent Guidelines for Loan Modifications: A lack of common standards has limited loan modifications, even when they are likely to both reduce the chance of foreclosure and raise the value of the securities owned by investors. Mortgage servicers – who should have an interest in instituting common-sense loan modifications – often refrain from doing so because they fear lawsuits. Clear and consistent guidelines for modifications are a key component of foreclosure prevention.
Clear and Consistent Guidelines for Loan Modifications: Working with the FDIC, other federal banking and credit union regulators, the FHA and the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the Administration today announced guidelines for sustainable mortgage modifications that may be used by all federal agencies and the private sector – bringing order and consistency to foreclosure mitigation. The guidelines include detailed protocols for loss mitigation and will serve as standard industry practice.
Applied Across Government and the Private Sector: Treasury today issued Guidelines for loan modifications that should serve as standard industry practice across the mortgage industry by working closely with the FDIC and other banking agencies and building on the FDIC’s pioneering role in developing a systematic loan modification process last year. The Guidelines – to be posted online – will be used for the Administration’s new foreclosure prevention plan. Moreover, all financial institutions receiving Financial Stability Plan financial assistance going forward will be required to implement loan modification plans consistent with Treasury Guidelines. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will use these guidelines for loans that they own or guarantee, and the Administration will work with regulators and other federal and state agencies to implement these guidelines across the entire mortgage market. Ginnie Mae, the Federal Housing Administration, Treasury, the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, The Department of Veterans’ Affairs and the Department of Agriculture also have agreed to seek to apply these guidelines when permissible and appropriate to all loans owned or guaranteed by these agencies. In addition, it is expected that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Office of Thrift Supervision, the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the National Credit Union Administration where possible and appropriate will encourage the institutions that they supervise to participate in the loan modification program and use the Treasury Guidelines.
Mortgage Insurer Participation. The major mortgage insurance firms have agreed to develop a mechanism by which they will make partial claims on modified loans where appropriate in order help prevent avoidable foreclosures.
Requiring All Financial Stability Plan Recipients to Use Guidelines for Loan Modifications: The Treasury Department will require all Financial Stability Plan recipients going forward to participate in foreclosure mitigation plans consistent with Treasury’s loan modification guidelines.
Allowing Judicial Modifications of Home Mortgages During Bankruptcy for Borrowers Who Have Run Out of Options: The Obama administration will seek carefully crafted changes to bankruptcy provisions which will help to facilitate the goals of the Making Home Affordable program
How Judicial Modification Works: Appropriately tailored bankruptcy legislation provides a mechanism for homeowners who are out of other options to file for bankruptcy and implement a responsible plan to pay the debts that they are able to pay. After borrowers have tried unsuccessfully to obtain affordable loan modifications from their lenders or servicers, in the appropriate circumstances, a bankruptcy judge should be able to reduce the outstanding principal balance of a primary residence home mortgage loan to current fair market value—just as is done with vacation homes or investment properties–when a person has no other options.
Bolster FHA and VA Authority to Protect Issuers and Ensure Loan Modifications Occur: Legislation will provide the FHA and VA with the authority they need to provide partial claims in the event of bankruptcy or voluntary modification so that issuers guaranteed by the FHA and VA are not disadvantaged.
Strengthening FHA Programs and Providing Support for Local Communities
• Ease Restrictions in FHA Programs and Improve Hope for Homeowners - An improved Hope for Homeowners program can offer an important avenue for struggling borrowers to obtain a sustainable mortgage. In order to ensure that many more borrowers are able to participate in Hope for Homeowners, we will work to improve the program and actively pursue legislation so that the FHA may reduce fees paid by borrowers, increase flexibility for lenders to refinance troubled loans, permit borrowers with higher debt loads to qualify, and address additional challenges that could limit uptake under the program. We will also ensure servicers consider borrowers for refinancing into the improved Hope for Homeowners program whenever feasible, and make similar incentives available to servicers for Hope for Homeowners refinance loans in order to encourage servicers to use this program.
• Strengthening Communities Hardest Hit by the Financial and Housing Crises: As part of the recovery plan signed by the President, the Department of Housing and Urban Development will award $2 billion in competitive Neighborhood Stabilization Program grants for innovative programs that reduce foreclosure. Additionally, the recovery plan includes an additional $1.5 billion to provide renter assistance, reducing homelessness and avoiding entry into shelters
3. Support Low Mortgage Rates By Strengthening Confidence in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:
• Ensuring Strength and Security of the Mortgage Market: Using funds already authorized in 2008 by Congress for this purpose, the Treasury Department increased its funding commitment to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to ensure the strength and security of the mortgage market and to help maintain mortgage affordability.
Provide Forward-Looking Confidence: The increased funding will enable Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to carry out ambitious efforts to ensure mortgage affordability for responsible homeowners, and provide forward-looking confidence in the mortgage market.
Treasury is increasing its Preferred Stock Purchase Agreements to $200 billion each from their original level of $100 billion each.
• Promoting Stability and Liquidity: In addition, the Treasury Department will continue to purchase Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities to promote stability and liquidity in the marketplace.
• Increasing the Size of Mortgage Portfolios: To ensure that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can continue to provide assistance in addressing problems in the housing market, Treasury will also be increasing the size of the GSEs’ retained mortgage portfolios allowed under the agreements – by $50 billion to $900 billion – along with corresponding increases in the allowable debt outstanding.
• Support State Housing Finance Agencies: The Administration will work with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to support state housing finance agencies in serving homebuyers.
No EESA or Financial Stability Plan Money: The $200 billion increase in Treasury’s GSE stock purchase funding commitments are being made under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act and do not use any money from the Financial Stability Plan or Emergency Economic Stabilization Act/TARP.
What Our Members Are Saying: 