Refinancing?

[Deleted]

The house on a next street over similar to ours (similar size, worse location on busier street, less curb appeal, termite damage) listed for $360K, sold for $420K this week.  I think that means we're at around at least $440K now, so I'm hoping we might actually have a shot at refinancing out of this 6.25 rate.  Our mortgage is $421K.  What are my chances?  Should I even bother calling around on Monday?  We could bring some cash to the table, goodbye my new kitchen savings   Is 20% equity a requirement these days?  I wasn't involved with the loan process the first time in 2007, DH took care of that part, so I'm not sure how it worked even back then, much less this time.

[ssmjlm]

You probably can refinance, but it will have to be with your current lender since I'm guessing you have PMI. That was what we ran into back in 2011. But we were able to go from 6.5% to 4.375%.

I can't wait until we can really refi and get rid of PMI and get away from this crappy mortgage company though.

[julygal]

Are you eligible for the HARP program? That's how we were able to refinance a year ago. Our home appraised at 192K and we had 193K left on the mortgage. It dropped our 6.6% rate from 2007 down to 4.5%. Since we originally put down 20% and did not have PMI, we did not have PMI on the new loan. Good luck.

[Deleted]

We do not currently have PMI. The first time we used a small piggyback to avoid it (we had almost 20%, which sort of makes me sick that we lost that PLUS another $40K or so), but we quickly paid the piggyback off, so it's long gone. If we end up with PMI this time, would we have to refinance again to get rid of it in the future?

[Deleted]

Apr 13, 2013 20:06:42 GMT -5 julygal said:

Are you eligible for the HARP program? That's how we were able to refinance a year ago. Our home appraised at 192K and we had 193K left on the mortgage. It dropped our 6.6% rate from 2007 down to 4.5%. Since we originally put down 20% and did not have PMI, we did not have PMI on the new loan. Good luck.

No.  Fuckers.  My neighbors were, because their loan happened to get sold to Fannie or Freddie I think, but ours is still held by Citi.  I fucking hate whoever's fault it is that we aren't eligible.  Fucking HATE.

[ssmjlm]

You may have to re-add in PMI b/c you won't have 20% equity with the current mortgage. Then it will either drop off automatically or you will have to refi later to get rid of it. It will depend on how your mortgage is written.

I think if you request PMI to be taken off some mortgages require 78% LTV vs it dropping off at 80% LTV.


ETA: The first time we tried to refi in early 2012 we contacted both our current lender and a broker.  Unfortunately our appraisal was horrific (thank you shitty comps) and we couldn't refi, but we were able to talk to a couple lenders about options.  It wasn't until we realized our original broker totally screwed up the way our PMI is done, that we realized we can only refi with our current lender, which we were finally able to do in late 2012 after paying more down on our mortgage and a big bathroom remodel.