My COVID Mortgage Forbearance Is Ending Soon…Now What?
Ewunike N Brady Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Diverse Segments
Your home is out there. A down payment as low as 3% on a fixed-rate loan could help you finance it. Each day, the sun rises on streets of houses. Neighbors wave to each other, people head off to work and school, new owners pull up to the home they’ve worked hard to buy. More than just buildings, homes are at the heart of a community. With Wells Fargo, you may be eligible for a range of home financing options, including low down payment loans, to help you reach your homeownership goals. Talk with a home mortgage consultant about loan amount, type of loan, property type, income, first-time homebuyer programs, and homebuyer education requirements to ensure eligibility. Having low down payment options does require mortgage insurance — an option that increases the cost of the loan and monthly payment. We’ll work together to find the loan that’s right for you. To learn more, call 1-877-937-9357 or visit www.wellsfargo.com/mortgage.
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For many homeowners, the option to suspend their mortgage payments during the pandemic offered a great option for temporarily cutting their expenses until they could get to a firmer spot financially. As of mid-summer, more than 1.75 million homeowners across the country remained in a COVID-19 related forbearance plan, according to Black Knight’s July 2021 Mortgage Monitor. However, the report says many of those active forbearance plans are expected to come to an end before the end of the year, potentially impacting an estimated 1 million homeowners. This is especially significant for the Black community, which was hit hard financially as a result of COVID. A recent Pew Center Research report indicated that fourin-10 Black adults live in households that have lost jobs or wages since the start of the coronavirus outbreak. So – if you’re a homeowner whose forbearance plan is coming to an end – what now? While the answer may differ based on individual circumstances, one thing is clear: homeowners in this situation need to take immediate action to find out what options might be available in their unique situation. Here are some tips to consider as you look at the path ahead: STEP ONE: Understand who
services your loan so you can take action. As you may know, the company to whom you send your home loan payments is called your mortgage servicer. Your servicer is responsible for collecting and applying payments to your loan, handling escrow accounts (if applicable), communicating loan information to you, and assisting you when you are facing financial difficulty. If you don’t already know who services your home loan, you should be able to find the name and contact information for your servicer by simply looking at your bill. STEP TWO: Contact your servicer to discuss the timing around when you need to plan to start making payments again and what your options for resolving the missed payments. Because servicers are required to apply investor or insurer rules when servicing your home loan and determining the options available to resolve missed payments, it’s important to know who owns or backs your loan. It could be a government sponsored entity like Fannie Mae, or Freddie Mac, a government agency such, FHA, VA or USDA, or a bank or private company. STEP THREE: The specific steps you will go through with your servicer depend on who owns or backs your loan, whether you were current on your payments when you entered forbearance and if you can resume your previous payments. In some cases, it CONTINUED ON PAGE FS5
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