What is an H4H Loan? Hope for Homeowners Explained

Reader Question: What is a 4h4 loan?

I think you referring to the new H4H program. I put your question as you wrote it above so you would recognize your question. :-)

Hope for Homeowners (H4H) is a program launched by the Federal Housing Administration. I wrote up an explanation of this program about a month ago, on one of our other real estate blogs. So if you want an in-depth explanation of the program, check out this article:
FHA Refinance Program - Hope for Homeowners

Basically, the H4H program is designed to help "at-risk" homeowners refinance their high-interest ARM loans into more affordable fixed-rate mortgages. More specifically, all of the loans made under this program are 30-year fixed (according to the last news release I saw on this subject).

The FHA launched Hope for Homeowners in October of this year, and it's supposed to remain active until September 2011. There are quite a few criteria for this program though, so it's not available to just anyone. You can learn about the eligibility criteria (and even apply for the program) through the link I provided above.

There is a lot of criticism of H4H right now, because it's not helping nearly as many homeowners as the FHA predicted. They boasted that they'd be able to help 400,000 homeowners over the next three years, but so far it's off to a sluggish start. Why? Because many of the people who need help are unable to qualify for a refinance loan -- despite the FHA's backing. Property values have dropped in most of the areas with high foreclosure rates, so a government program does little good for them if the lenders turn them away. (You have to apply for this program through a private lender, like always.)

But I better wrap up this blog post before I go on a tangent about the ineptitude of the federal government! That sums up the Hope for Homeowners program in a small nutshell. You can learn more about this and related topics through the links below.

Related Articles:

• Learn More About H4H
  
• FHA Home Loan Program
• Hope for Homeowners Isn't Helping

I hope that clears up some things for you. Thanks for writing.