By Bob Boog

Now that the ink has dried on the Obama Housing Stability Plan, people want to know what's in it for them. So here goes: basically the Treasury Department will offer inducements and put pressure on lenders to reduce monthly payments for borrowers at risk of losing their houses which should result in five benefits for homeowners. They include:

1. The Fix-it Program helps Hard-Working Homeowners Stay in their homes: Those who commit to make reasonable monthly mortgage payments can stay in their homes " providing families with security and neighborhoods with stability. Thus owners who may have lost equity due to the faltering economy can lower their payments without having to move.

2. No help for flippers. Remember those TV shows where investors boasted of making massive profits by fixing up houses and then reselling them? Those days are mostly gone and in addition, the Obama plan provides no assistance for real estate speculators with homeowners receiving all the funds.

3. The Initiative Aids Neighborhoods. Because a foreclosed home often attracts vagrants, vandals and graffiti, not to mention being an eyesore with the dried grass landscaping and yellowed newspapers piled up on the stoop, stopping a home from becoming a foreclosure benefits the entire neighborhood. Not to mention the rock-bottom values that the foreclosed home will get from the new purchaser.

4. It Provides Support for Responsible Homeowners: Because loan modifications are more likely to succeed if they are made before a borrower misses a payment, the plan is proactive. It will include households at risk of default despite being current on their mortgage payments.

5. The Obama Housing Fix-it Plan hopes to make total monthly payments affordable. The approach is to attack the homeowners total debt, and create a payment plan that the homeowner can keep. Using the power of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in conjunction with the Treasury Department, the plan offers to make a homeowner's debt more sustainable.

The Financial Stability Plan's goal is to bring back a sense of security to the struggling real estate market. The plan has been designed to discourage lenders from opting to foreclose on mortgages that could be viable now out of fear that home prices will fall even further later on. Plunging house prices, for example, make it harder for purchasers to obtain new loans " even with good credit, because lenders concerned about the true value of homes, simply refuse to extend credit for fear that they may be in the same situation five years down the road.

Is there more to the Financial Stability Plan? Um, do most foreign films have sub-titles? Yes!. The Plan includes incentives for people who help to successfully modify home loans for owners, principal reduction payments for owners who stay in their homes for five years and even incentives for lenders who postpone foreclosures.

The Treasury Department will be using the full power of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to standardize guidelines for loan modifications. And the benefit not talked about to consider is this one: by pumping 75 billion into the economy, the administration is giving the economy a sudden jolt that might be felt as quickly as June. The word on the street is that purchasing a home now and renting it out may prove to be a much safer bet than keeping the money in the bank!

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