re-fi after unemployment

[jcwishes]

Thought I would throw this question out there. Hubby and I would like to re fi. He has been back at work after being out over a year. We were able to stay current on our mortgage and stay afloat in other ways. He has a good job with the fed gov. We were wondering how long we need to wait to refi in terms on how long he has been employed for. Any help would be great.

 

[Luv Bunnies]

I don't think you need to wait at all. Call your lender and ask if they can offer you a lower interest rate. You can also find a good mortgage broker who can shop around for a new lender for you.

We were just able to do a re-fi and my DH is still unemployed. Our lender originally turned us down a few months ago because only one of us was working and we didn't qualify on my part-time income alone. We found a broker who knew of a few government programs that would help us qualify. We have a spotless payment record and have had our current loan for almost 13 years (you'd think our lender would want to lower our payment to ensure that we can keep paying!). Through the government program, we were able to drop from 6 3/8% to 4 1/2% Our payment will be dropping by $345 per month! The funny part is that we're keeping the same lender that initially turned us down for a re-fi. The program under which we qualified required only one of us to be employed. We didn't have to get an appraisal since we're only financing 17% of the value of our house. We did have to pay points but we just added the amount to our loan and our payment is still going way down. We're just waiting to sign the paperwork this week and then we'll be done.

Make a few calls and see what you can find. It can't hurt! Good luck!

 

[jcwishes]

Thank you so much for the input!!!

 

[mrsklamc]

Please call your local credit union. I didn't think we'd be able to refi either and they took great care of us. They can do something called 'manual underwriting' - using their brains like people instead of just a credit score.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

DH and I have been trying to get Wachovia/Wells Fargo to call us back for 2 weeks.
That is who our mortgage is thru now and we just wanted to do their streamline refinance, but no one returns a call or email and when I tried to call the 800 # on our statement I was on hold forever. It is so frustrating!

 

[mrsklamc]

I was on my phone before so I just want to elaborate-

We live in a condo, and have less than 20% equity in our home. Now normally, when you have less than 20% equity, you pay something called Private Mortgage Insurance. Problem: Since the shift in the economy, PMI companies are no longer providing PMI for condos. So even though we were otherwise debt free, and have excellent credit, no re-fi available for us through a traditional bank. Someone here on the DIS advised me to check into refinancing through a credit union. I really need to look up that thread, and thank them! Our credit union refinanced us for FREE- they pay the appraisal fee, no closing costs, no points. We switched to a 15 year which saved us a TON of money as well. Now, since I don't know what the rest of your situation looked like while DH was unemployed, I don't want you to think this will only work for those with excellent credit- PLEASE call them no matter what your situation. Also, I have found that many of my friends didn't think they qualified to use a credit union-and here they take about anyone. I can't say enough about our credit union- oh, and did I mention they pay us 4% interest on our checking account? LOVE 'EM! Oh and BTW- credit unions don't do PMI either....

 

[Zoesmama03]

jcwishes,
Good luck! on the load issues and for the unemployement. I feel ya there, been searching like crazy for 11 months now. Sounds like you got good advice but you may have to get behind before many companies will consider it with government programs.

disneymagicgirl,
I know how they are having dealt with Wells Fargo on a car loan and knowing how much trouble my best friend had getting them to agree to the government programs to lower her payments.

If you can get away from them RUN!!! Finally after she got set up to short list the house and sell that way did they jump on the boat and lower her interest and payments. They had been told they had to get behind. Wells Fargo did a budget allowed satellite and Internet but said they could not have cell phones. WTH? Eventually it worked out and they still have their phones.(its their only lines)