What is STREAMLINE MORTGAGE REFINANCE?

[gwtw428]

Ok, so my mortgage company Chase just called me and said I qualify for a Streamline Refinance and to come in. I made an appointment for next week. I just went online to research this Streamline Refinance and I am so confused. Everytime I call Chase to lower interest rates etc they say I do not qualify as I do not have enough equity in my house. And now our house is appraising about $30,000-$40,000 less than what we paid.

Has anyone done this type of refinance? What do I need to know?

 

[Disney-Kim]

to my understanding it just means less paperwork and less costs...supposed to be quicker...since they are "streamlining" it.

 

[BrettS]

You can do an FHA streamline mortgage refinance if you already have an FHA mortgage. (Your bank can tell you if you're not sure). I did one last year. It doesn't require an appraisal of your house, so it's OK if your house lost value. You can also roll most or all of the closing costs into the new loan, so it could be low or no cost out of pocket, however, you can't take out any more than you originally did. If you've been paying the mortgage for a few years now then you've probably paid down enough to roll most of the closing costs into it, but if it's a newer loan then you may need to pay some of the closing costs out of pocket. Some banks offer an option where the bank pays the initial closing costs, but charge you a higher interest rate on the loan. If you're planning to keep the loan for a while this might not be a good option for you.

Finally, it is *not* required that you do the streamline refi with the same bank that currently holds your mortgage. If you're seriously interested in doing it you should definitely talk to several banks. When I did mine I got three quotes and the closing costs varied by several thousand dollars among the banks.

HTH,
Brett

 

[madcat]

We did a streamline refi (not very long after we bought that house actually). We have a VA loan, the two p.p. were right it was less paper and work in general, we rolled closing costs into the new loan and had to pay nothing out of pocket. There was a "rule" or something like that that said we could not get any money back (not sure if that had something to do with the streamline or the fact that it was a VA loan though). All in all it was pretty easy.

 

[gabriellyn]

We did this also, a little less than a year after we bought our house - got a 2 percentage rate deduction off of our interest rate! Very little out of pocket and the paperwork and hassle was virtually nil. MUCH less stress than the original home purchase - you should definitely check it out!