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Housing counseling as a resource to reduce the need for loan modification and foreclosures has been shown to be very beneficial since the housing crisis, but according to the Urban Institute, though it’s proven itself to be helpful, there is still more housing counseling can do to further impact homeowners. Urban Institute cites that with 2 percent of loans in foreclosure and 8 percent underwater, counselors and lenders can start looking forward once again.
The report states that because of the changes in the demographics for homebuyers in the next generation, it is imperative that the counseling continue with not just their current work, but expand their practice to further progress. Because housing counseling can benefit homebuyers in more ways than just successfully entering into a healthy stance of homeownership, Urban Institute points out that with housing counseling, consumers can potentially increase their savings, reduce debt, raise their credit scores, decrease reliance on payday lending, reduce financial stress, and improve financial satisfaction.
According to the report from Fannie Mae, certain religious groups including Orthodox Jews, Members of the Hmong community, and some Muslim borrowers are not able to pay interest due to their religious practices. Because of this, lenders have found alternatives to help them purchase and keep their homes. University Bank for example has made roughly 850 million dollars-worth of loans in 16 states that are acceptable for particularly the Muslim borrowers
