Banks Offer a New Tool for Home Refinancing

Posted by SooYeon(Pia),Shin

In February, President Obama announced that he would activate a $275 billion plan to stabilize the housing market and reduce foreclosures. The Home Affordability Program would permit millions of Americans to refinance their mortgages with the low mortgage interest rates even if they have little equity or debt. And also, the program allows homeowners to refinance up to 105% of their home value without mortgage insurance. Therefore, some of the nation’s biggest lenders, including Bank of America Corp., J.P Morgan Chase & Co., and Wells Fargo & Co., are now offering a new program to help refinance homeowners.

Fremont Bank, which is the leading full-service community bank in Northern California, founded in 1964. Fremont Bank declared that “it has made $800 million in home mortgages in the past 90 days (Calvey).” The bank has helped 3,600 homeowners and expects to provide more loans to 15,000 to 20,000 homeowners by year-end. Fremont bank, consequently, hire 100 mortgage-related employees in the East bay this year as to provide better service, and it plans to hire additional staffs to fulfill high mortgage demand. Also, Bank of America said that it has added 3,000 employees to its mortgage origination business as well.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2009/04/06/daily74.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123931996530606873.html

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20090410005172&newsLang=en