New Lend America Program Fights Foreclosures

A new program aims to aid the housing market on two fronts, Lend America announced Friday. The Melville, N.Y.-based FHA lender launched a specialized Hope for Homeowners (H4H) Outreach Program designed to help investors recapture principal from non-performing residential mortgage portfolios while keeping borrowers in their homes under refinanced, affordable mortgages. “Our mission is to provide liquidity to finance deserving and credit worthy borrowers currently shut out from FHA financing because of unfair credit score and burdensome program restrictions by the larger loan aggregators,” said Lend America’s chief business strategist Michael Ashley in a media statement Friday. “In the modern day rush to automation and credit scoring, many deserving borrowers are overlooked and cast aside as unqualified without ever being properly analyzed and afforded the opportunity that a fixed rate FHA home loan offers.” The program will operate from Lend America’s origination platform, which employs more than 300 mortgage specialists in FHA lending. Lend America, which is licensed to operate in 40 states, announced Friday it is already working with a major financial institution to refinance as much as $1 billion of its residential mortgage portfolio under the H4H Program. Mortgages eligible for refinancing under the program include prime, Alt-A and subprime loans originated on or before Jan. 1, 2008. While the borrower may be delinquent at the time of refinance under Lend America’s program, at least six payments must have been made by the borrower on the existing mortgage. Editor’s Note: To contact the reporter on this story, email [email protected].