Tag Archive for HARP

Adventures in Refinancing, Chapter 5

March 7, 2012 / / 12 comments

I’m very proud to announce that this chapter will end our story on getting a refinance. As of Monday, we finally closed on our new mortgage under the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP)!

Here’s what has been going on since last time:

Our Home Appraisal:

So after the initial consultation and deposit, there was not a lot to do except wait until the estimator came back with his appraisal of our house. And so we waited, and waited, …

And after 8 years of not “really” knowing how much our house was worth, we finally received an official home appraisal as part of the process. How did we do? Bum-badda-baaa (victorious trumpets sounding ….):

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Category: Mortgage & Refinance / Tags: , , , , ,

Adventures in Refinancing, Chapter 4

January 30, 2012 / / No comments

mortgage, home loan, refinance, equity, PMI, principal mortgage insurance, house, Obama, Home Affordable Refinance Program, HARPWe’ve got big news: We applied for a refinance!

What’s New

It’s been quite a while since I’ve updated this series. Since my last post in Chapter 3, a lot has happened – a lot of good things!

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Adventures in Refinancing, Chapter 3

November 9, 2011 / / No comments

Since my last post on refinancing, I have visited a great deal of posts and articles on the web and have learned that we have something is common:

• Many of us have the same problem with trying to get a refinance.

That problem is:

1) We are underwater (our house is worth less than what we still owe). In mortgage terms, our loan-to-value (LTV) ratio is above 100%.

2) We faithfully make our payments on time

3) We have no other home equity or liens against our property

4) We have private mortgage insurance (PMI)

Number 4 is the real kicker. In most instances, this is where all the government help you see advertised all over hits a brick wall.

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Adventures in Refinancing, Chapter 2

October 19, 2011 / / No comments

My quest to get our mortgage refinanced started off with great promise – like a hot air balloon up and off into the sky. But … it didn’t take long for it to come crashing back down onto the ground.

Here are my experiences this week:

Local Mortgage Company:

The first place I called was a local mortgage company that was recommended to me by my neighbor. I have a very strategic reason for choosing this company:

• My neighbor and I have the same exact model house. Our neighborhood is a new-build subdivision built around 8 years ago. My neighbor is also getting a home appraisal right now and that will give me a very good idea about what my house is worth (say to +/- 10%).

After answering some initial questions, the agent gave me three pretty-good sounding options:

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