360 Mortgage Group Calls for HARP 3.0

While the revised Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP), commonly referred to as HARP 2.0, has allowed far more homeowners to refinance than the original version, there remains a large group of eligible homeowners who have yet to take advantage of the program.

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""360 Mortgage Group"":https://www.360mtg.com/, a privately-owned mortgage bank based in Austin, Texas, is calling for the implementation of [COLUMN_BREAK]

HARP 3.0 based on this large proportion of homeowners who continue to pay interest rates far higher than today's historically-low rates.

While admitting, ""HARP 2.0 has been very successful in enabling a large number of homeowners to refinance at historically low interest rates,"" Mark Greco, president and founder of 360 Mortgage Group sees room for improvement as ""less than one in four eligible borrowers under the HARP 2.0 guidelines has taken advantage of this important program.""

About 2.6 million GSE-backed loans might be eligible for HARP 2.0, according to Lender Processing Services (LPS). Of these, half have prime credit scores and about 670,000 continue to harbor interest rates above 6 percent, according to LPS.

Many Alt-A and subprime borrowers have been unable to take advantage of HARP 2.0, according to Greco. ""Consequently, HARP 3.0 is in order,"" he said.

""HARP 3.0 would be an opportunity to not only expand refinances to include these borrowers who have been diligent on their payments, but also to continue to rebuild our nation's economic strength,"" Greco said.