Anyone use HARP?

[sunnyshari]

I've heard about the HARP program for refinancing mortgages but I don't know how legitimate it is. Whenever I try to research it online I seem to come to an "article" about it which is really just a paid advertisement. We have a mortgage that will be paid off in 2034 with an interest rate of 4.375%. I would love to lower the payments as we have one child going to college in 2018 and need to save more towards that OR I would like to make the same monthly payments and pay the loan off more quickly. Has anyone done this program before? Who is eligible?

Thanks!

 

[supersnoop]

HARP is a program for people who owe more than their house is worth. They need a special program because banks wouldn't otherwise refinance their loans.

Unless you owe more than the house is worth, just go to your local cal credit union or mortgage broker and inquire about refinancing. Online, PenFed.org use to have some great mortgage rates, but I'm told they aren't as competitive anymore.

 

[tvguy]

Here are the rules as to who qualifies for a HARP.
https://www.harp.gov/eligibility

 

[sunnyshari]

Here are the rules as to who qualifies for a HARP.
https://www.harp.gov/eligibility

Thanks to you and supersnoop!

 

[PatMcDuck]

We refinanced last fall, thru the bank that owned our current mortgage. I will say, I thought it would be easy. Good (very) credit scores, plenty of equity in the house, even after the new loan (over $100,000), income fine. It took over 3 months, and it was arduous. Every time I turned around, more information was requested. From multiple departments, as it moved thru the process. I guess the banks are super super cautious now. It was not expensive, just annoying. Finally did close.

 

[Simba's Mom]

We were denied a HARP loan because we'd once taken a loan against our house (can't remember what that's called) even though we'd paid it off over 10 years ago, never been late on a payment, had great credit scores, etc. Don't know if that was HARP rules or if we got caught in the Wells Fargo problem-they're investigating now.

 

[tvguy]

We refinanced last fall, thru the bank that owned our current mortgage. I will say, I thought it would be easy. Good (very) credit scores, plenty of equity in the house, even after the new loan (over $100,000), income fine. It took over 3 months, and it was arduous. Every time I turned around, more information was requested. From multiple departments, as it moved thru the process. I guess the banks are super super cautious now. It was not expensive, just annoying. Finally did close.

Must be. I refinanced twice, never took more than 2 weeks.

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

A few yrs ago we refied with the HARP program that was offered by the bank that held our mortgage. It was easy. No appraisal was done. took about 2 weeks to complete.

 

[yankebabie]

We also re-financed through HARP. Used same mortgage company we had. We had 21 years left on our mortgage & re-financed to a 15 year and payment was almost the same. All said and done in about a month. Easy peasy for us

 

[scrapquitler]

We refinanced last fall, thru the bank that owned our current mortgage. I will say, I thought it would be easy. Good (very) credit scores, plenty of equity in the house, even after the new loan (over $100,000), income fine. It took over 3 months, and it was arduous. Every time I turned around, more information was requested. From multiple departments, as it moved thru the process. I guess the banks are super super cautious now. It was not expensive, just annoying. Finally did close.

Yes, all refinances are more of a process than they used to be. When we refinanced back in 2002, there was minimal paperwork, and the refi went thru in about three weeks from when we applied to when we closed. We had a LTV ratio of about 70% then. Fast forward to 2016. We have excellent credit scores, LTV ratio of ZERO, good income, refi for $100K to pay off a vacation home and pay college tuition. Seemed simple enough-- but it took over 3 months and almost every week the bank wanted some kind of additional documentation. IT was really kind of ridiculous.