Mortgage help expanded

Help is on the manner for some Ohioans at hazard of losing their places as portion of a growth subprime
mortgage crisis.

The Buckeye State Housing Finance Agency announced yesterday that it have eased the demands for its
Opportunity Loan Refinance Program, which offers consumers the opportunity to refinance at a fixed rate
for 30 years.

The programme is designed to assist low- and moderate-income consumers refinance interest-only,
high-rate or adjustable-rate mortgages before the loans adjust. Often, when initial involvement rates
expire and higher rates take effect, the consequent payments are beyond homeowners' agency and they
are not able to maintain up.

The new guidelines for the state programme are more than lenient. Now, borrowers who have got had one
60-day and two 30-day late payments in the past 12 calendar months on their existent mortgage may still be
considered for the loan, said Doug Garver, executive manager director of the state agency.

The move will increase the figure of consumers eligible for the loans, he said.

"With these expanded underwriting guidelines, we trust to assist 100s of Buckeye State households maintain the
home they have got worked so difficult to obtain," Garver said.

To be eligible for the program, householders must ran into certain fiscal guidelines, complete four
hours of lodging guidance and, in John Hope Franklin County, must have got a family income of $80,500 or
less. The charge per unit for these 30-year-fixed-rate loans is 7.5 percent, Garver said. The programme already
has put aside $14 million for loans and closed on 25 loans worth a sum of about $3 million, he
said.

Garver declined to give a upper limit amount the federal agency could offer in loans to consumers.

The federal agency also have a first-time home purchaser programme that offerings consumers with less-than-perfect
or untraditional recognition histories fixed-rate loans with rates between 6.375 percentage and 6.875
percent.

Steve Torsell, executive manager director of Homes on the Hill Community Development Corp., which serves
Columbus' Occident Side and Hilltop areas, names the moderation of the guidelines a good move. The
nonprofit lodging grouping offerings home-buying support, including place purchaser classes.

"Sometimes people happen themselves with more than debt duties 1 calendar month over another for various
reasons, such as as illness, divorce, occupation loss or other unexpected emergencies," he said. "So it's
good to have got a loan merchandise that acknowledges that sometimes haps to good people who otherwise are
able to ran into their loan obligations.

"No 1 desires to foreclose on a home, because it's not good for the loaner or the homeowner. It's much more than economical to maintain a loan in place, so my conjecture is that a batch more people would find
this a utile product."

Dave Mack, concern director for American Mortgage Service in Worthington, agrees. The company is
one of respective sanctioned loaners that offering the refinance loans through the Buckeye State Housing Finance
Agency.

"It do the programme more than appealing to more borrowers, but you still have got to measure up based on
other recognition guidelines," he said. "It's a good thing for the people that demand the help, because
(they're) probably in mortgages they can't afford."