As a small, local business dedicated to creating happy customers, we are thrilled that Pamela offered to give Galaxy Lending her personal endorsement in a series of commercial spots we purchased at KTAR.

Listen to KTAR galaxy spot or have a look at the transcript:

:60 Radio Commercial Script
Talent: Pamela Hughes
Title: Galaxy Lending Group Refinance-15YR
Pamela Hughes:

Have you seen the rates for mortgages lately?
They are insanely low!
I’m Pamela Hughes and that was one reason why my husband and I decided to explore refinancing our home.
We chose Galaxy Lending Group.
We were thrilled in that we were treated with such personal attention and not as if we were just a file on someone’s desk.
They proved to us that they had our interest at heart and gave us valuable guidance and advice.
It’s so much more than just the numbers.
I can personally tell you that the folks at Galaxy Lending Group will take care of you, walk you through the process and act as your advocate.
After my husband and I sat down with Galaxy Lending we decided to refinance into a fifteen-year fixed mortgage.
The difference in the interest we’re going to be saving means we’re going to be able to sock away a nice chunk of change for our daughter’s college education and gain equity in our home quicker.
Give them a call at 602.595.1233.
That’s 602.595.1233 or www.galaxylg.com.
Galaxy Lending – Stellar loans, sound advice.
Announcer:
Galaxy Lending Group, LLC. NMLS 154808. MB-0919491. Equal Housing Lender.

Click to Apply Now

An earlier version of HARP allowed homeowners with mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie to refinance, but only if their new loans were no more than 125 percent of their home’s current value. In metro Phoenix, where values have plunged by more than half since the market’s peak in 2006, that limit left many borrowers out.

The update to the program, which lenders refer to as HARP 2.0, lifts that loan-to-value restriction completely. The goal is to help homeowners save money and fend off foreclosures by lowering payments.

Jay Luber, president of Phoenix-based Galaxy Lending, has had borrowers lining up to refinance since late last year. He has been watching updates on the program since then. Here’s his analysis of how the expansion of HARP will work and who will qualify:

• A homeowner must have a mortgage purchased by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac on or before June 1, 2009. Jumbo loans, FHA loans and bank portfolio loans don’t qualify.
• No limits on the loan-to-value ratio of 30-year mortgages for primary residences.
• No limits on combined loan-to-value for homeowners with a first mortgage and a home equity credit line or second mortgage.
• Lower refinancing fee .
• Second homes and investment properties qualify for the HARP program. But borrowers must show they have savings to cover two months of mortgage payments for second homes and six months for investment properties.
• Homeowners are not required to purchase mortgage insurance if they don’t have it now.
• No appraisals required; lenders run an “automated valuation model” to value a home.
• Borrowers can’t have made a late payment in the past six months.
• Homeowners can’t have refinanced through the first HARP program
• Borrowers must qualify for the loan based on employment, credit and assets.  This is a change from when the original expanded HARP was announced in November.

To help homeowners reduce their mortgage costs through refinancing, the Departments of Treasury and Housing & Urban Development are making key changes to their Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP).

Historically, HARP required a maximum loan-to-value (LTV) of 105% for a current mortgage or up to 125% if an existing servicer offered the program. New program enhancements effective March 17, 2012, will allow many more homeowners to take advantage of HARP and the financial relief it offers. Some loan caps will be eliminated and program requirements will be loosened for homeowners with traditional loans across the country. Jumbo loans, FHA loans and bank portfolio loans will still not qualify under HARP.

The enhanced HARP program features:

1.  No LTV caps on loan terms up to 30 years for a primary residence.

2.  No caps on combined loan-to-value (CLTV) for homeowners with a first mortgage and a home equity credit line or second mortgage. (Adjustable rate mortgages still carry a 105% LTV cap.)

3.  Lower  fees for HARP loans and no add-on fees for loan terms of 20 years or less.

4.  Second homes and investment properties qualify for the HARP program.

5.  Homeowners are not required to purchase mortgage insurance if they currently do not have. If they do have mortgage insurance, they are required to continue coverage.

6.  No appraisals required; lenders run an “automated valuation model” to assess home values. (In rare cases, lenders may choose to order physical appraisals.)

To qualify for a HARP program, homeowners must have a loan that was purchased by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac on or before June 1, 2009.  Your current loan servicer should be able to confirm this for you.

To qualify for a HARP loan:

1.  You must have no late mortgage payments in the past six months and no more than one late payment in the past 12 months.

2.  You must have no previous use of the HARP program.

3.  You must qualify for a loan based on employment, credit and assets. If relying on the income from a second job, there can be no employment gaps for that job in the last 12 months.

4.  You must show two months of mortgage payment reserves for second homes and six months of reserves for investment properties.

If you are in Arizona and would like my help in exploring your HARP eligibility, please let me know. My contact information is below.

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have adopted changes to the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) and you may be eligible to take advantages of these changes. If your mortgage is owned or guaranteed by either Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae, you may be eligible to refinance your mortgage under the enhanced and expanded provisions of HARP. You can determine whether your mortgage is owned by either Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae by checking these links to their websites.

Jay Luber, founder and president of Galaxy Lending Group LLC, is a mortgage industry veteran with 25 years of residential lending experience.

Arizona underwater homeowners to get financial help

More Arizona homeowners may soon be able to refinance to current low mortgage-interest rates, no matter how far underwater they are in their homes.

The Obama administration on Monday announced long-awaited details of an expansion of a program that helps homeowners refinance to reduce their payments.

Mortgage rates have fallen to record lows, and many homeowners would save hundreds of dollars a month if they could reduce the amount of interest they pay. But the housing crash has created a huge barrier.

A refinanced loan typically requires the home have enough value to cover the entire amount of the new loan. But plunging home values means many owners owe far more on their loans than their homes are worth. An estimated 40 percent of metro Phoenix homeowners are currently underwater.

The federal Home Affordable Refinancing Program has allowed certain loans to be refinanced if the borrower owed up to 125 percent of the home’s value. But many underwater borrowers in Arizona owe more.

The plan announced Monday would lift the value requirement completely, allowing some borrowers to refinance no matter how much their home’s value has dropped, if their mortgage is backed by one of the two largest federal mortgage agencies and they meet other requirements.

Borrowers can start to apply as soon as December, according to the few details released Monday, and the program would run through the end of 2013.

Speaking on a temporary stage in a Las Vegas neighborhood, Obama touted the plan as a way to allow struggling homeowners to save money.

“Probably the single greatest cause of the financial crisis and this brutal recession has been the housing bubble that burst four years ago,” he said. “And as long as this goes on, our recovery can’t take off as quickly as it would after a normal recession.”

The plan

The HARP program has helped about 900,000 homeowners nationally to refinance. Arizona figures aren’t available.

The plan described by Obama and the Federal Housing Finance Agency on Monday would expand HARP by changing the rules and costs associated and extending the time period in which borrowers can apply.

Among the key elements:

- Refinancing will be available to homeowners with loans backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac in 2009 or earlier.

As with the current refinancing program, the option would be open only to borrowers with mortgages backed by the two largest federal mortgage agencies. Borrowers whose banks hold their loans privately would not qualify. Still, federally backed loans make up a majority of the existing mortgages in the state and the country.

The federal government did not give an official count of how many people will be able to refinance, but U.S. Housing and Urban Development head Shaun Donovan estimated 4 million families could be eligible.

Current federal programs have encouraged lenders to refinance such loans or modify loan-payment amounts for borrowers in financial trouble, but the banks that handle the payments in many cases have been slow to respond. Obama said the new program will allow other lenders to compete to make the new loans.

“Some lenders, frankly, just refuse to refinance,” he said Monday. “So, these changes are going to encourage other lenders to compete for that business by offering better terms and rates, and eligible homeowners are going to be able to shop around.”

The program is designed to help borrowers who took loans before the housing crash, and only applies to loans backed by the federal agencies on or before May 31, 2009.

Market-watchers say the key will be to see whether banks and the mortgage giants actually follow through.

“The new refinancing program sounds like a good idea, but it has to have teeth,” said John Smith, president of the Mesa-based non-profit Housing Our Communities, which counsels homeowners on avoiding foreclosure. “The government has to make Fannie and Freddie go through with these deals.”

- Refinancing will be available to homeowners who are current on their mortgage payments.

To qualify, homeowners must not have missed more than one payment in the past year.

The plan differs from other programs that were meant to help borrowers who could no longer afford their mortgages. The federal loan-modification program was open only to borrowers who were already late on making their payments.

Instead, the refinancing is open to borrowers who have made their payments.

Although it could help some people who have struggled to make those payments avoid foreclosure, it also could simply help other homeowners free up more money each month.

- Refinancing will be available no matter how much the home is currently worth.

The loan simply must be backed by Fannie or Freddie and be within standard sizes – for example, oversize “jumbo” loans will not qualify.

Borrowers who meet the financial requirements could refinance no matter how much the amount of the loan exceeds the home’s current value, known as the loan-to-value ratio.

The previous HARP plan called for a 105 percent loan-to-value ratio, meaning homeowners who owed 5 percent more than their houses were worth could refinance under the plan. That ratio was quickly criticized for helping few in the hardest-hit housing markets of Arizona, California, Nevada, Florida and Michigan. It was raised to 125 percent but still wasn’t enough for many homeowners who bought during the past decade in metro Phoenix.

“If the limit is lifted completely, then that will make a big difference for Arizona,” said housing analyst Michael Orr, who publishes an online daily analysis of metro Phoenix’s housing market called the “Cromford Report.” “Many people have a loan-to-value of over 200 percent.”

- Refinancing will cost less.

The changes announced Monday would also limit fees associated with refinancing, in hopes of making the move more affordable. Homeowners who qualify don’t have to pay additional excessive fees for an appraisal or processing.

Jay Luber, president of Phoenix-based Galaxy Lending, knows many homeowners who will qualify for this program.

He believes it could “accelerate the stabilization of values in metro Phoenix by decreasing foreclosures and short sales.”

The doubts

Housing advocates point to past programs that have garnered bad reputations.

The Housing Affordable Modification Program, HAMP, was announced in conjunction with the original refinancing program two years ago.

Tens of thousands of homeowners in Arizona alone were promised loan modifications and put in trial programs. These borrowers made the trial payments for more than a year in some cases only later to be denied a permanent modification.

Overall, the federal housing plan called for helping 7 million to 9 million homeowners. Fewer than 2.5 million have been helped with all of the plan’s programs.

Phoenix real-estate agent Kevin Kaufman is skeptical of the new plan.

“I’m honestly very, very pessimistic about any government program actually helping people,” he said. “Having been in the trenches for four years now and seen so many empty promises. I don’t believe the government will actually help.”

Too late?

When Obama unveiled federal efforts to stem foreclosures two years ago, he traveled to Mesa to make the announcement. At the time, foreclosures were surging.

Today, foreclosures have been steadily slowing in metro Phoenix. So the latest move has been criticized as coming too late.

Also, many market observers note that for many homeowners, the real problem is not just their monthly payment but the fact that they will still owe so much more than their houses are worth, making them unable to sell or move.

The Obama administration is hinting about more aid for people who have lost homes to foreclosure and neighborhoods with many empty foreclosure homes.

But this expansion of HARP does help the homeowners who continued to pay as others walked away.

Tom Schroder was turned down for a refinance last year because he owes at least 40 percent more than his Scottsdale home is worth. He said he is angry because he feels like he’s being penalized for other people’s foreclosures and bad decisions.

“I keep paying my mortgage on time and watching others buy homes at 5 or now even 4 percent (interest rates),” he said. “The changes to the refinancing program sound good. I just want to see some action on it from lenders and fast.”

Patricia Garcia Duarte, president of the Phoenix-based non-profit homeownership counseling service Neighborhood Housing Services, said the new refinancing plan rewards homeowners with good credit who have not missed many payments.

“Owing more on a property than it is worth is still problematic for many in Arizona,” she said. “Revamping HARP is a good thing, not the entire solution.”

In the 1960’s we experienced a severe economic recession. At that time it was perceived that our post war population boom was over and the majority of all those moving to our state had done so. Based on the decreased demand the real estate marked slowed and growth staggered for several years. Shortly after we were again one of the top growth cities in the nation.

The 1970’s brought a different kind of challenge to our growth. The Valley of the Sun was depicted as the crime capital of the United States, and the conclusion was again drawn that our boom days were over. Soon after we entered another period of dramatic growth.

In the 1980’s our state went through a time of political and economic turmoil. Aside from being portrayed in a negative light by national publications including Fortune Magazine, many of our Savings and Loan institutions were declared insolvent. Toward the end of this decade financial institutions that were pillars of our growth had fallen. Like today, these financial institutions took advantage of loose banking regulations and permitted aggressive real estate ventures, many of which went sour. These financial institutions held large amounts of residential, commercial and industrial mortgages. Like today, many of these properties were worth less than the mortgage lien obligations. Unlike today, the government worked swiftly to dispose of them. In 1989 the government formed the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC). The mission was to dispose of these assets though well organized auctions. More than $400 billion dollars of assets from the nearly 800 institutions were disposed of over the next few years. This well orchestrated approach to deal with these non-performing assets in a timely manner largely contributed to a rebound in real estate values and economic growth.

Today we have an abundance of listings as well as a shadow inventory not yet released to the market by the major banks. Unlike previous cycles, for the most part today’s crisis was the result of a robust real estate boom and investor speculation. Coupled with extremely lose and highly leveraged underwriting guidelines, created by Wall Street and the secondary market, the bubble ultimately burst. In a market whose labor force is highly tied to the Real estate sector, the economy as a whole has suffered.

Unlike the RTC who disposed of real estate assets in a timely fashion, Fannie Mae Freddie Mac and the banks that manage their loan portfolios have failed to assist homeowners with alternatives to avoid loan defaults. As a result, many frustrated homeowners have made the strategic decision to simply walk away from their home. It is the failure of the banking and secondary market community to implement effective timely solutions for underwater homeowners that has curtailed a more timely real estate recovery.

In the long term, there is no doubt that our market will rebound and again prosper. Recent reports show we are showing some stride in this direction.

Regrettably, all too many homeowners have lost their homes as a result of the current downturn. It is a shame that the financial institutions along with the government did not pro-actively put forth an effective workout plan that could have saved homes for many as well as curtailed the depth of its economic impact on the local economy.

With recovery on the horizon, there has never been a better time to buy a home or purchase an investment property in the Phoenix area. For those with the financial ability and desire, the Phoenix real estate market is ripe for the picking. Housing prices are down, interest rates are in the high 4s, and potential homebuyers have their choice of homes at a range of price points.

Numerous economists project that the Phoenix housing inventory will gradually decrease and that by 2014 housing demand will outweigh supply. Over the next few years, home prices will begin to rise as inventory and sales come into balance. 
Growth in metropolitan Phoenix is based on our wonderful lifestyle and climate. Inflow migration, a key economic driver, is holding steady. With more than 300 days of sunshine, an average temperature of 74.2 degrees and no hurricanes, tornados, volcanoes, mudslides or snowstorms, Phoenix is a phenomenal destination well positioned for a healthy recovery. There is no doubt that Arizona will rally and the Phoenix real estate market will again prosper.