This relief plan was created by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as a part of the stimulus package to help millions of homeowners to refinance their loans with low interest rates even if the appraisal value of their properties have dropped around 20%. Credit score of 620 is required.

Appraisal Value	The loan can not exceed 105% of new appraisal value.
	Example: Two years ago, you bought a house for $100,000 and you got a loan for $80,000 with 6.00% or higher interest rate. Your loan did not have mortgage insurance. Now, due to the declining home values your home appraises only $80,000. With this plan your loan will not decline due to the property value.
Your Current Loan	Your current loan should be Fannie Mae's loan, but could be serviced by any bank or mortgage company such as: Bank of America, Citi, Chase, Countrywide, Fifth Third Bank, Well's Fargo, Washington Mutual, Capital Federal Savings, JB Nutter, or others.
New Loan Amount
	Your new loan amount will include: Balance of existing loan Closing costs Prepaid Items The total loan amount can not exceed 105% of the new appraisal value.
Who Should Apply?
	The borrowers who are homeowners and are current on their mortgage payments, but unable to refinance because the home value has decreased. With this Fannie Mae' home affordable loan plan, they may be able to refinance and convert:   Fixed high interest rate mortgage to fixed low interest rate. Adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) to fixed-rate mortgage
With no Mortgage Insurance
	The new loan will not have mortgage insurance, but If your existing loan has mortgage insurance, it will not qualify for this plan.
No Cash Out with Harp Plan	You can not get any cash out from this transaction at closing.
Property Types	Primary home     Second home  Investment home
Minimum Credit Score	For Fannie Mae's DU Refinance plus, the credit score should be         620 for primary home and 680 for second home and investment        properties      For Freddie Mac, there is no minimum credit score requirements,     but if principal and interest payment is increasing by 20%, then the      minimum credit score requirement is 620.
Is Freddie Mac’s rate higher than Fannie Mae’s rate in HARP program?	Is Freddie Mac’s rate higher than Fannie Mae’s rate in HARP program?   On the contrary, in Freddie Mac, since there is no credit score rate adjustment, it’s rate should be lower than Fannie Mae’s rate in HARP plan. If you are getting higher interest rate from your current mortgage company, here is the reason:  If your loan is with Fannie Mae, regardless of who is servicing the loan, you could apply for HARP program with any mortgage company. However, if your loan is with Freddie Mac, you have no choice but refinancing your loan with your current mortgage company. Since no one is able to compete for your loan, your mortgage company may charge what ever they want. Competition has a lot to do with low interest rates too. Even in normal circumstances, if there were no mortgage brokers and all the mortgages were done by just a handful of big banks, your interest rates would be much higher.
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Property Tax	2 to 3 months
Hazard Insurance	14 months
Pre-paid Interest	1 to 25 days

when we pre-approve the loan, we will give our borrowers the estimated pre-paid items along with the closing costs within $100 of the actual costs. 

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 As an individual who has spent the past 16 years reading and evaluating borrowers' credit reports as a loan processor and a loan officer, without any doubt I could say that these credit scores are not reliable tools for evaluating borrowers qualifications for home loans.

I wonder why Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have not stopped using credit scores as the most important tool for loan qualifications and rate calculations after losing hundreds of billions of their own money and tax payers' money! Why aren't they looking for the borrowers' loan payment history rather than just fake credit scores, knowing that credit scores are not good indicators of how borrowers will make their payments! In the past few years, considering just credit scores for qualifying borrowers for mortgages created financial disaster in home and abroad and affected almost everyone's life: