Fannie Mae recently announced the “Deed for Lease” program to allow troubled homeowners facing foreclosure to stay in their homes and rent them for up to a year. The program aims to help struggling homeowners maintain their residence while also keeping inventory off of wobbly housing markets.

Fannie Mae acquired 57,000 homes during the first half of the year and needed to find a way to generate some cash flow from properties that otherwise would sit vacant as well as to keep a large number of properties out of foreclosure.

Borrowers have to demonstrate they can’t afford their current mortgage but can pay the monthly rent. In addition, the borrowers mortgage servicer has to show the borrower didn’t qualify for a loan modification. According to the Wall Street Journal, Fannie will use a professional management company to handle maintenance, and properties that are sold during the lease period will include an assignment of the lease to the new owner.

We are not here to talk Washington policy or offer our opinion to solve the housing crisis but we do follow anything and everything at all that relates to and appears to be a good thing for the housing market. To us, anything that helps homeowners and stabilizes communities for the folks that live there and helps the resale market for those who earn their living from home sales can not be a bad thing. Weigh in with your opinion by leaving a comment below.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under In The News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.