Press Contact Only:
Margaret Matrone, NCHFA, 919-877-5606, [email protected]
Connie Helmlinger, NCHFA, 919-877-5607 [email protected]
A program that is helping more than 14,500 North Carolina homeowners keep their homes is available in our area through Johnston-Lee-Harnett Community Action, Inc. The Smithfield counseling agency has joined 40 counseling organizations statewide in offering the NC Foreclosure Prevention Fund, a mortgage assistance program offered through the NC Housing Finance Agency using funds from U.S. Treasury.
The NC Foreclosure Prevention Fund makes mortgage payments for qualified unemployed workers, including returning veterans, while they seek jobs or complete job training in a new field. Homeowners seeking new employment after divorce or other hardship events may also qualify.
Help is provided as a zero-interest, deferred loan of up to $36,000 or 36 months of mortgage-related payments. After the assistance period, homeowners resume making their own mortgage payments. The loan is forgiven and no repayment is due if the owner continues to live in the home for 10 years.
The Fund also offers loans up to $30,000 to pay off second mortgages for homeowners who are employed but who are unable to make their monthly mortgage payments because of reduced income. The zero-interest loan does not need to be paid back until the homeowner sells or refinances the home.
Homeowners do not need to behind on payments to seek help.
“The Foreclosure Prevention Fund helps protect both homeowners and their communities by preventing foreclosures and keeping property values stable,” said A. Robert Kucab, executive director of the NC Housing Finance Agency, the self-supporting state agency that manages the Fund.
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The NC Housing Finance Agency is a self-supporting public agency. It has financed nearly 215,000 affordable homes and apartments statewide. It offers the NC Foreclosure Prevention Fund with funding from the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Hardest Hit Fund®.
