Area agency expects to have answers soon about mortgage rewrite plan

The details of President Obama's plan to rewrite millions of mortgages are just becoming known, but the leader of a Cape Girardeau agency that helps people in danger of losing their homes said counselors will be ready with answers this week.

4Sight Counseling, founded in 2005, offers a program that covers every aspect of housing, from managing money and advice before buying a home to intervention help with lenders and advice on landlord-tenant issues. But the agency's big task last week was digesting Obama's $75 billion plan to help homeowners cut their payments by lowering interest rates and, in some cases, the amount owed.

Two of the agency's counselors attended a national conference last week that included a briefing on the plan, said Tim Gould, president of 4Sight. The mechanisms for providing help are still being worked out, Gould said.

"There are just a lot more questions than answers," Gould said. "It sounds like it could be really exciting."

Obama's plan aims to help homeowners cut their payments to an affordable level. In some cases, that will mean refinancing the loan with lower interest rates. For people who owe more than their home is worth, the help includes a five-year loan modification that will cut interest rates and offer incentive payments to remain current on the debt.

The new program should make it much easier to work with lenders, Gould said. In the past 10 months, as foreclosure rates rose, it has been difficult to know how lenders would react to an attempt to negotiate on behalf of a homeowner, he said.

"The thing that is really frustrating is that this tide has done a 180 three times since April," Gould said. Lenders were ready to talk at first because they didn't want more empty homes on their books. When the federal tax rebate stimulus was enacted last year, lenders toughened and demanded the tax payments, which were $1,200 for married couples and more for families with children.

After the government finished distributing stimulus checks, lenders became more lenient again, Gould said.

By enlisting assistance, Gould said, families can find ways to avoid foreclosure. "We have been able to stop those because these people are ending up with all these houses that are sitting vacant," he said. "It behooves the banks to work with us, and we have done quite well."

rkeller@semissourian.com

388-3642

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