My personal mortgage crisis

This is the much-touted homeowner bailout that President Obama launched this year to ease the mortgage crisis by paying lenders to refinance loans. But as I discovered, just trying to access the program put me through a torturous weeks-long battle with red tape that made my previous interactions with the RMV and the IRS seem downright fun. Trying in vain to get help left me with a chilling thought: If this is the result of a sweeping national program to ease the mortgage crisis, I hate to think what will happen with healthcare.

My quest began in earnest on June 17 at 3:10 p.m. I had heard that help was available for homeowners like me, who weren’t behind on mortgage payments or in danger of foreclosure but who were mired in bad loans with payments scheduled to adjust upward. I had been stuck, unable to sell or refinance my mortgage, since shortly after purchasing my South End condominium in July 2005. Like many Americans, I had succumbed to the dream of homeownership with the help of a broker at Countrywide Home Loans, who signed me up for 100 percent financing -- yep, no money down! The deal also came with low, interest-only installments for seven years. After that, the monthly payments would go up, to what level I didn’t know and frankly didn’t care, because surely I would get out of the loan before then -- I could either sell the residence for a profit or refinance it with another loan at a fixed rate with stable payments.

But the value of my home soon plummeted, from the $264,400 that I had paid for it to only $227,000, according to Zillow. Selling it wouldn’t bring enough to pay off the loan, whose balance remained stagnant because I had paid only interest. And refinancing was out of the question, because my debt was 116 percent of the value of my home. Lenders who had turned me down said my balance could be no higher than 80 percent of my home’s value to qualify. I was foolish to sign up for the sketchy loan in the first place. Now I was trying to make the best of a bad situation.

I Googled “Making Home Affordable Program” and found a nifty form online that would tell me if I qualified for help. Are you a homeowner? Yes. Are you current on your mortgage payments? Yes. Is your mortgage backed by Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae? Yes. Is the amount you owe 125 percent or less than the value of your home? Yes! I qualify! The website,

makinghomeaffordable.gov, directed me to call my mortgage lender.

I couldn’t dial fast enough. But from the first phone call -- to Bank of America, which had bought Countrywide, which had sold my loan, which had been bundled with others, which became mortgage-backed securities, which are guaranteed by Fannie Mae -- I felt like a ping-pong ball.

Bank of America said I didn’t qualify and told me to call Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae said that I did and sent me back to Bank of America. The bank, in turn, directed me back to Fannie Mae, which sent me to a different department at Bank of America. That department told me it didn’t handle the refinancing program and directed me to the first department I had contacted, which told me again that I didn’t qualify, according to the bank’s computer. No one could say why. “It either says eligible or not eligible, that’s all,” a bank employee said, unhelpfully.

After more back and forth, another bank employee agreed to review my file -- the paper one -- and call me back. At press time, nearly a month later, I was still waiting.

The whole mess has left me wondering how many of the 9 million homeowners who were supposed to be helped by the program ended up like me: in limbo. Is this how people lose faith in government? I don’t need to make another 20 calls to find the answer.

Donovan Slack is the City Hall bureau chief for the Globe. E-mail her at dslack@globe.com.