refinance

[blanq]

I think a loan modification is the government's forelcosure plan option, and from what I have read mortgage holders can qualify for one of two programs:

1. Mortgage holders who are behind on their payments can apply for the “loan modification” program.
2. Mortgage holders who have not missed payments but whose payments are more than 31 percent of their monthly income can apply for the “refinance” program. It is only available to people whose mortgages are held by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

We refinanced a year ago February at 4.75 for 15 years. I will have to keep watching the rates; I might just bite if I could get no/low closing costs and the rate was .5-1% lower than my current rate. We have quite a bit of equity in our home.

 

[bas71873]

I think a loan modification is the government's forelcosure plan option, and from what I have read mortgage holders can qualify for one of two programs:

1. Mortgage holders who are behind on their payments can apply for the “loan modification” program.
2. Mortgage holders who have not missed payments but whose payments are more than 31 percent of their monthly income can apply for the “refinance” program. It is only available to people whose mortgages are held by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

We refinanced a year ago February at 4.75 for 15 years. I will have to keep watching the rates; I might just bite if I could get no/low closing costs and the rate was .5-1% lower than my current rate. We have quite a bit of equity in our home.

Thanks for that. Doesn't apply to me.

 

[Swimalie]

Those of you in the DC Metro area, try SunTrust Mortgage.Low 4's %. My DBIL is buying a house right now and he had done a ton of research/looking at rates.

Our lender called us about two weeks ago and told us what rates were and asked if we were interested in a refi. He ran the numbers for us and it was a no brainer. We told my DBIL to call him and he is now using them.

I just looked. Those rates are either FHA or with origination fees AND discount points. More fees for them to collect from you. The best way to refinance is to get them without any points or fees.

 

[jessrose18]

We are having our appraisal today. We are trying to refinance to a 30 yr locked in at 4.95 w/ no closing costs through our current lender. Will save 130 and month and a house payment We already have pmi and they say w/ the new laws it cant go up.
Previous poster from phoenix my guy also said people who previously didnt have pmi and new appraisals make it so they would need it there is a new law in place saying you wont have to have it to protect people who are backwards on loans. Just an fyi.

 

[Mkaz]

We locked in at 3.82% on a 15 year fixed rate mortgage.

I am so happy. Our mortgage lender said our rate is the lowest he has given out in 9 years of lending. Our payment from our current 30 year loan will go down about $100 a month and we will save years and thousands off our current loan!!

Anyone else refinancing right now? What rate did you get?

That's awesome!! We are getting ready to start the process of refinancing. Our mortgage was sold for the 4th time. We are very unhappy with the new mortgage holder. Seems like they were trying to pull some stuff straight away to make some extra cash from us. We let them know that it wasn't going to happen. When that didn't fly, we received another letter stating that our escrow account was short by xxx, and our payments were going up. We were never given the option to make up the difference. I did some research on them, and didn't like what I read at all. So it's time for us to find ourselves a new lender.

 

[BabyTigger99]

We are getting a new home loan at 4.50% (VA home loan). I am super excited. The house we are selling, our loan is at 6%. Plus, we sold our current house in 21 days!!!

 

[soccerchick]

I just looked. Those rates are either FHA or with origination fees AND discount points. More fees for them to collect from you. The best way to refinance is to get them without any points or fees.

Of course it is. We personally got most fees waived since we were repeats.

My point was their loans were very competitive. DBIL has been shopping around and these, with fees, beat all the ones he'd looked into.

Everyone needs to run all the numbers to see what makes it worth it, or not, for their own situations.

 

[emdav]

I know any loss is hard but be glad with $12,000. I'm sitting at $150,000 right now over 4 years. Yes, my stomach aches every day over what I've lost. So far, though I'm not upside down and not in trouble with my mortgage but sadly, even with very good credit scores and the fact that we put 40% down on the house, we can't refinance without having to get PMI due to the loss. I refuse to pay PMI so we're staying with the current mortgage.

Oh, I'm not upset. I couldn't rent the house for 9 months for $12,000 so I think I'm doing fine. I know there's still a lot more room to fall though. The house is $325,000 down from it's highest price. I feel badly for anyone who bought then.

 

[PartyOf5]

I think a loan modification is the government's forelcosure plan option, and from what I have read mortgage holders can qualify for one of two programs:

1. Mortgage holders who are behind on their payments can apply for the “loan modification” program.
2. Mortgage holders who have not missed payments but whose payments are more than 31 percent of their monthly income can apply for the “refinance” program. It is only available to people whose mortgages are held by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

We refinanced a year ago February at 4.75 for 15 years. I will have to keep watching the rates; I might just bite if I could get no/low closing costs and the rate was .5-1% lower than my current rate. We have quite a bit of equity in our home.

For those who do not qualify for the above, the scenario I described above was a "rate" modification. I do not believe this is related to any government initiatives. For $500, no appraisal, little paperwork, it's worth a call to your lender.

 

[onyx8]

just closed on our refi this week - 3.875% on a 15 year.

 

[AZMermaid]

Oh, I'm not upset. I couldn't rent the house for 9 months for $12,000 so I think I'm doing fine. I know there's still a lot more room to fall though. The house is $325,000 down from it's highest price. I feel badly for anyone who bought then.

Yeah- that's us too. Although we are frustrated that we couldn't refinance, the foreclosure note was for $300,000 more than we bought it for. I see our house and I can not imagine someone paying that much for it! I have a lot of friends who are totally stuck in their "starter" houses that they bought in 2006 and are now more than $100,000 under water. They have outgrown the house but have to stay.

 

[clj1410]

I would like to do this too, but not sure where to start.

We will not really save to much off our monthly payment, but i could knock 3 years off of our mortgage.

Our current mortgage company, does not have good rates.

Any mortgage companies in NJ with good rates and low closing, that anyone could recommend?

 

[jsksjs]

That is awesome! We were going to refinance this month but our house didn't appraise. We bought 10 months ago and the house appraised at $355,000. We just needed it to still appraise for $335,000 to avoid paying P&I. It appraised for $318,000. So freaking frustrating. Supposedly we are in a "good" area of Phoenix as far as houses retaining value. We plan on living here for 20+ years, so we didn't care that much about month to month fluctuations- but geez, $37,000 in 10 months??

ETA- we weren't going to have to pay any closing costs for staying with Wells Fargo. Our only cost was for the appraiser.

SAME THING HAPPENED TO US! Bought our House 8/09 for 440K, appraised then at 440K. Tried to refi with Same Bank, now it only appraised at 407K! Thats crazy! It is the housing market?

 

[jessrose18]

appraiser just left. took measurments/pics of outside and every room. didnt follow him upstairs but noticed oh shoot he moved my cover that was blocking a 3" hole in my bathroom wall where we had some water damage and are waiting to resheetrock till we had some extra money. me like the panicker i am called him back and told him we were going to resheetrock. hope that didnt blow it the rest of the house is in great condition. will keep you guys updated

 

[sophie832]

I am a little in-the-dark about this sort of thing. We purchased our home 11/09 with a 30-year FHA loan @ 5%. Now I'm reading people are getting 30-year loans for 4.5%, possibly less. This would only knock $75-100 off our monthly payment, but that's still something. Is this something I could even do? My mother is a co-owner (needed her income/credit history to get the mortgage), but I still got the first-time homebuyer tax credit. The payments are less than 31% of my mother and my combined income, which is what they'd look at for loan modification? We are paying for PMI, and our house taxes and insurance are all part of our monthly payment...don't know if that makes a difference. I think our house would appraise at the same value as it did back in November.

Anyway, should we refi? Or is it ridiculous because we had a pretty good rate to start with? Or can we do a loan modification?

 

[jessrose18]

Just got our appraisal back-2 days later! Aprraised at 173,000, which is above the mark that we needed so we are so excited. Surprised, 6 years ago at market peak house appriased at 183 when we bought it. Our pmi will also go down now. Good luck to all those waiting to refinance!

 

[Skatermom23]

Just locked a 15 year at 3.875 with no points this morning. It doesn't change my monthly payment but it does shave off 8 years of payments.

 

[smile750]

I would like to do this too, but not sure where to start.

We will not really save to much off our monthly payment, but i could knock 3 years off of our mortgage.

Our current mortgage company, does not have good rates.

Any mortgage companies in NJ with good rates and low closing, that anyone could recommend?

Go to NJ.com and click on link for nj mortgages or something like that. You put in some criteria or not and it will list all companies servicing in NJ. That's what I did....

 

[neatokimmo]

Last month I increased the HELOC on the small house I live in to pay down the larger one I have for sale. Same amount of cash owed to the bank between the two properties, but I was able to change the loans to 15 year 3.25%. It took $10 off my payments (big whoop) but is saving $201 a month in interest now. Since I am planning on selling the larger one with all the equity, I'm mostly just interested in not going backwards with holding costs

No fees and I know it can adjust. But not before the big one sells and pays off everything.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

We refinanced last friday for 4.25% on a 15 year. we were very happy with that. it's going to save us about $ 150 / month. Plus, since we already had our mortgage w/ that bank, they paid ALL closing costs. Nothing added to our mortgage at all.

Who is your bank? I tried to refi our mortgage thru our current lender and it was going to cost $12k!!! I said no way! We will just keep sending extra each month to pay it down, at the current 6% rate we have.