Refi with no appraisal?

[Deleted]

Our mortgage broker contacted us out of the blue last night to ask if we would like to see a good faith estimate of a refi she had drawn up for us. It would take our interest rate from 5.25 to 3.6, no credit checks and no appraisal.

It almost sounds like a scam, but the I appraisal --we're likely underwater by about 10k--is appealing. Over the summer, we had contacted another broker to ask about a refi, but were told we would likely not have enough equity. We don't qualify for a harp refi.

Has anyone else done this? Or even heard of the bank contacting them to refinance? It seems too easy.

[chessie]

Never heard of it. Though we have had some odd offers and I tend not to go with them, if they sound too good to be true.

[froggy76]

I did a HARP refi like this, but I wouldn't doubt there are other ways to do it. I would at least talk to her.

[sjh722]

Did you do an FHA or USDA loan? They offer streamline refis that don't require a new appraisal (if I recall correctly) - I think they can use the original purchase appraisal.

[Deleted]

Sept 26, 2012 10:41:23 GMT -5 chessie said:

Never heard of it. Though we have had some odd offers and I tend not to go with them, if they sound too good to be true.

Exactly--except it is through Wells Fargo and the paperwork looks completely legit. I wonder if it's an effort to get more business through this office? Or if its something that when the 3 year mark on certain loans (which we hit this week) they automatically run the paperwork?

Eta--it's an FHA loan

[pig's eye]

If I remember correctly, we didn't have an appraisal for our HARP 2.0 refi.

[csquared]

Sept 26, 2012 10:43:43 GMT -5 sjh722 said:

Did you do an FHA or USDA loan? They offer streamline refis that don't require a new appraisal (if I recall correctly) - I think they can use the original purchase appraisal.

We just did this (and I also thought it was too easy). They used the original purchase price as the appraised value and it lowered our monthly payments by 25%. Was all through the original lender and they contacted me about it.

[sunshine608]

We are doing one now ( if we ever get a closing date). We started in August and are just waiting. BOA keeps saying they are backed up with these types of refis

[Deleted]

This is awesome and exactly what I want to hear,and it's not even Tuesday*! Thanks for all the replies!

*at my work, we have tell-me-what-I-want-to-hear Tuesdays. It's one of the many made-up holidays my CW and I celebrate.

[keyslover]

Sept 26, 2012 10:36:33 GMT -5 @mrschicken said:

Our mortgage broker contacted us out of the blue last night to ask if we would like to see a good faith estimate of a refi she had drawn up for us. It would take our interest rate from 5.25 to 3.6, no credit checks and no appraisal.

It almost sounds like a scam, but the I appraisal --we're likely underwater by about 10k--is appealing. Over the summer, we had contacted another broker to ask about a refi, but were told we would likely not have enough equity. We don't qualify for a harp refi.

Has anyone else done this? Or even heard of the bank contacting them to refinance? It seems too easy.

A few years back our mortgage company contacted us about writing off our second mortgage. I thought it was too good to be true, but it wasn't. We had our second mortgage forgiven. Yes, it was a short refi on my credit report, but saved us over $40K.

I did question things heavily throughout the process, but it was legit.

[Deleted]

Sept 26, 2012 10:45:09 GMT -5 @mrschicken said:

Sept 26, 2012 10:41:23 GMT -5 chessie said:

Never heard of it. Though we have had some odd offers and I tend not to go with them, if they sound too good to be true.

Exactly--except it is through Wells Fargo and the paperwork looks completely legit. I wonder if it's an effort to get more business through this office? Or if its something that when the 3 year mark on certain loans (which we hit this week) they automatically run the paperwork?

Eta--it's an FHA loan

Not a scam! We have an FHA through WF also and was offered the same day. Our LTV though is not enough for us to get out of MIP yet so it was not worth it for us to go on with the refi but it is completely legit.

[melmo1122]

I just did FHA streamline refi with no appraisal last month. Went from 5% to 3.75% and cost me nothing. in fact i got back $320 at closing and then a check for $1200 for my escrow balance about a week later.

Saved me $280 a month on my mortgage payment. can't beat that.

[Deleted]

Sept 26, 2012 11:38:41 GMT -5 melmo1122 said:

I just did FHA streamline refi with no appraisal last month. Went from 5% to 3.75% and cost me nothing. in fact i got back $320 at closing and then a check for $1200 for my escrow balance about a week later.

Saved me $280 a month on my mortgage payment. can't beat that.

Did you have more than 20% equity?

[Deleted]

We are not required to get an appraisal as part of our refi

[suburbanzookeeper]

We closed on our FHA streamline last month with no appraisal. We went from 5.25 to 3.50 and cost us essentially nothing out of pocket (and we weren't at 20% equity) - just a postdated check for escrow. We closed on original loan in May of 2010 and we really started getting refi offers in the mail over the summer.

[hockeywife]

Sept 26, 2012 10:45:09 GMT -5 @mrschicken said:

Sept 26, 2012 10:41:23 GMT -5 chessie said:

Never heard of it. Though we have had some odd offers and I tend not to go with them, if they sound too good to be true.

Exactly--except it is through Wells Fargo and the paperwork looks completely legit. I wonder if it's an effort to get more business through this office? Or if its something that when the 3 year mark on certain loans (which we hit this week) they automatically run the paperwork?

Eta--it's an FHA loan

We did a streamline refi through Wells Fargo a couple of years ago. No credit check, no appraisal, no employment verification and NO closing costs. We didnt get the best rate available at the time bc of the no closing costs, but it was worth the savings!

[CallingAllAngels]

Sept 26, 2012 10:36:33 GMT -5 @mrschicken said:

Our mortgage broker contacted us out of the blue last night to ask if we would like to see a good faith estimate of a refi she had drawn up for us. It would take our interest rate from 5.25 to 3.6, no credit checks and no appraisal.

It almost sounds like a scam, but the I appraisal --we're likely underwater by about 10k--is appealing. Over the summer, we had contacted another broker to ask about a refi, but were told we would likely not have enough equity. We don't qualify for a harp refi.

Has anyone else done this? Or even heard of the bank contacting them to refinance? It seems too easy.

This was almost exactly our situation, and our refi went through and was legit. We did qualify for HARP, so that may make a (big) difference.

[melmo1122]

Sept 26, 2012 11:43:01 GMT -5 vigurl said:

Sept 26, 2012 11:38:41 GMT -5 melmo1122 said:

I just did FHA streamline refi with no appraisal last month. Went from 5% to 3.75% and cost me nothing. in fact i got back $320 at closing and then a check for $1200 for my escrow balance about a week later.

Saved me $280 a month on my mortgage payment. can't beat that.

Did you have more than 20% equity?

i am right at 20% equity but the closing costs wouldn't have been worth it to refi to conventional. i got a better deal sticking with FHA even with paying the PMI

[boiler717]

We did a streamline refi with no closing costs or apprasial.

[jlt19]

We're in the middle of an FHA streamline with WF as well. We're going from 6% to 3.75%, with no appraisal. We had about 5% in equity, but were definitley underwater market wise.

We're not expected to bring a dime to closing and will save $400 a month.

The only "downside" I found was that while our loan balance is not increasing, we had owed only 26 years left on our mortgage and now we're back up to 30. We don't plan to live here for that long anyway, so it's a win-win for us.

[jenni232323]

Sept 26, 2012 10:44:07 GMT -5 @rennido said:

We just did a refi, and we had no appraisal. We dropped our rate from 4.25 to 3.2%

HARP here too. Went from 6.4 to 3.99%

[AAM2012]

Sept 26, 2012 10:58:13 GMT -5 sunshine608 said:

We are doing one now ( if we ever get a closing date). We started in August and are just waiting. BOA keeps saying they are backed up with these types of refis

Call Quicken Loans. They act as a broker and we're getting our closing within 30 days. Same thing that BOA would offer: FHA streamline with no appraisal and very minimal closing costs (our choice).

We contacted BOA and our loan officer said he'd call me back after his doctors appointment. That was the 1st week of August and I'm still waiting for that call....

[Melissa W.]

Sept 26, 2012 16:38:34 GMT -5 AAM2012 said:

Sept 26, 2012 10:58:13 GMT -5 sunshine608 said:

We are doing one now ( if we ever get a closing date). We started in August and are just waiting. BOA keeps saying they are backed up with these types of refis

Call Quicken Loans. They act as a broker and we're getting our closing within 30 days. Same thing that BOA would offer: FHA streamline with no appraisal and very minimal closing costs (our choice).

We contacted BOA and our loan officer said he'd call me back after his doctors appointment. That was the 1st week of August and I'm still waiting for that call....

We did ours through Quicken (our original lender). It was easy. However we also dropped our rate and shortened our term from 30 to 15. Our payment ended up about the same.

[Doggy Mommy]

We've refinanced twice. The first time had no appraisal and the second one did have an appraisal. Both saved us money and were not scams.