Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP)

2008 may have been a bad year for cabernets (too dry, then too wet), but it was an even worse year for homeowners. The economy was recessing like it was its job, interest rates were dropping like stones, home values were following suit, and millions of Americans were suddenly finding themselves out of work. As a result, almost ten million families ended up losing their homes between 2008 and 2014.

But there were millions of families who didn’t, and some of them owe that happy fact to HARP, the Home Affordable Refinance Program introduced in 2009.

The goal of this program was to help people who weren’t going to go into foreclosure—they could make their payments, but could use a helping hand making sure it stayed that way.

When interest rates drop, homeowners sometimes refinance their home loans to take advantage of that. But in 2008, home values had dropped so far and so fast (we’re talking 33% decreases in some places) that people now owed more than their homes were worth and couldn’t get refinanced. HARP was created to step in and allow qualifying homeowners to refinance, even if they were technically underwater on their house.

By the time the program expired in December of 2018, over 3.3 million Americans had taken advantage of it. And we’re willing to bet that, for those homeowners, HARP assistance was a serious cause for celebration. Even if they celebrated with a 2008 cabernet.