There is 75 billion dollars worth of foreclosure help in the new housing stimulus program. This targets about 4 million home mortgage borrowers or 1 in 5 people having trouble with making their mortgage payments.

Of course, this is not exactly easy money. There are some rules for becoming eligible to borrow. The owner has to be the primary resident of that home, and the mortgage amount may not exceed about $729,750. And you have to make a case that you have indeed been suffering from the recession and experiencing some sort of hardship, which would explain why one is having trouble making their mortgage payment, this may include getting laid off, or just by simply misstating how much you have earned during the initial loan application. And most importantly, the borrower must have a mortgage loan balance higher than the value of their homes.

Of course, there are also some additional quirks to this, such as having to attend debt counseling. This makes sense so as to prevent home owners from going into another bad transaction. But offset this with the advantage that the US Treasury will fix the loan payments up to 31 percent of the borrower’s income and incentives of up to $5,000 in principal loan reduction if you make timely payments.

Hopefully this will help out a lot of people who are bleeding money with falling home equity but are stuck with a mortgage that whose principal has not changed.

If you don’t qualify, you could go for the new refinancing program.  More on this later.

Related posts:

1. Government to Boost Ownership in Citigroup

2. The Making Home Affordable Program is on!

3. Low Mortgage Lenders : Hope In the Foreclosure Plan?

4. Making Home Affordable – Eligibility (TARP Refinance)

5. Downturn in home prices