How to seek mortgage relief amid coronavirus concerns

USA Today Reporter Jessica Menton joins Yahoo Finance’s Zack Guzman to explain who will qualify for a stimulus check after the House passed the $2T coronavirus relief bill by a voice vote.

Video Transcript

ZACK GUZMAN: As that bill is enacted, questions being asked right now about what Americans should be prepping for regarding stimulus checks that could be coming their way, as well as mortgage relief that could be out there as well.

For more on that, I want to bring on Jessica Menton from "USA Today," a reporter there. And Jessica, when we look at this, what should Americans know? I mean, we've covered the stimulus checks in terms of how much you need to be making. If you're making more than about $100,000, you're probably not going to be getting a check. But beyond that, what else should Americans know about this?

JESSICA MENTON: Well, it's clearly a fluid situation right now since it still needs to be signed by President Trump. But from the tax experts that I have spoken with, it seems like those income levels that we're aware of have remained the same.

But there are some technicalities that people should really keep in mind. So say you have direct deposit setup with the IRS. You should expect to get this refund in your account within the next three weeks. But there are some problems when you think of, OK, well, what if I'm waiting on a paper check to come in the mail?

And so there are some technicalities out there. A lot of tax preparers I've spoken with have said if you haven't filed your 2019 tax returns yet, you should do that as soon as possible so that they can have-- the IRS can have the most updated address and direct deposit information.

Because say, for instance, if you haven't filed yet and they were going off of your 2018 returns, they could have an old address or maybe a direct deposit account that you didn't want to use. So there's a lot of technicalities when it comes to things like this. So if you haven't filed yet, you should really get on that soon as possible.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, you obviously don't want to delay any more of that, as we've already seen this response taking a little bit more time than a lot of Americans would have hoped for. And some of those Americans might be dealing with their own stresses right now as schools get closed, having more cost in terms of feeding their kids, who are staying home from school.

So what are you seeing on the front of some Americans that might be hitting difficulty paying back mortgage payments and what they could do to be proactive about the financial stresses that they might be facing?

JESSICA MENTON: And just to your point, I've actually spoken with borrowers. There was a woman in Connecticut where her kids are at home right now, because they can't go to school. So she's been using a lot of her income to go towards food that would normally go towards her mortgage payments.

So she's struggling right now, and she's trying to call up her lender to get help. And she was complaining to me about how she would be on the phone for a couple hours trying to get some sort of response. So I think there's a lot of confusion right now on what kind of relief programs are out there for borrowers.

And so for instance, you think about Governor Cuomo from New York. He said that New York would suspend those payments for three months. And then if you look towards in California, they're trying to work with different lenders to also suspend those payments.

But I think people really need to keep in mind there's a lot of technicalities when it comes to things like that. So say, for instance, if you do have a mortgage and it's backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac or it's an FHA-backed mortgage, there's certain programs that you qualify for versus someone else who has their loan directly through that bank.

So you might have a different relief program offered to you than your friend or maybe a family member. So that's really important to ask those questions when you do call up these lenders to see what it is that you qualify for right now.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, it never hurts to be earlier rather than later. But for now, Jessica Menton from "USA Today." Thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it.

JESSICA MENTON: Thanks.