HARP 2.0 — Home Affordable Refinance Program

The Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) — including the improvements commonly called "HARP 2.0" — was a federal refinance program created to help homeowners who were current on their mortgage payments but had little or no home equity. HARP 2.0 relaxed several earlier restrictions (including limits tied to loan-to-value) so more borrowers whose loans were owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac could refinance to more affordable terms.

Key eligibility requirements (historical HARP 2.0 rules):

• The mortgage must be owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac (check your loan ownership with the agencies or your servicer).
• The mortgage typically needed to have been acquired by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac on or before the program cutoff (original HARP rules referred to loans acquired before mid-2009 for many program elements).
• Borrowers needed to be current on payments (generally no 30-day late payments in the past six months and no more than one in the last 12 months).
• HARP 2.0 removed many LTV caps that had blocked underwater homeowners from refinancing under the original HARP rules.

Benefits borrowers commonly received under HARP 2.0:

• Ability to refinance despite high loan-to-value (negative equity) where traditional refinancing would otherwise be unavailable.
• Opportunity to lower interest rate and monthly payment or switch to a more stable loan product.
• No program-imposed prepayment penalty—borrowers could pay off or refinance the loan without a HARP penalty (check your loan terms with your servicer).

Status and modern alternatives: HARP was retired and stopped accepting new applications at the end of 2018. Since then, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have launched permanent high-LTV