Mortgage Assistance – It’s Not A Myth – HARP 2.0 Requirements

Mortgage Assistance – It’s Not A Myth – HARP 2.0 Requirements

Jun 21, 2012 by Prudential PenFed Realty • 0 Comments

Mortgage assistance is not a myth; you just have to meet all of the HARP 2.0 requirements.  A few years ago (I want to say 2010) this was tough and we didn’t meet the requirements for the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP).  Our loan was held by Fannie or Freddie and we had made all of our payments on time and in full but we were (are) just so upside down on our home that we didn’t qualify.  We were told if we stayed under 105% loan to value than we would be good to go for a refinance at 4.5% (our current mortgage was 5.5%).  So we spent the $450 for an appraisal only to have it come in at 169%.  Did I mention we were upside down on our mortgage?  There were a lot of short sales on the market in our area which brought down the value drastically.  Needless to say we were denied the refinance and out $450.  Talk about depressing!

So what did we do?  We continued to make our payments on time and in full.   We kept an eye on the various refinance programs available.  None of which we could do because of our LTV ratio.

Our luck changed in March 2012 when the HARP 2.0 program was started.  I read through all the details on the flyer on HARP 2.0 requirements was sent to us by our bank:

  • Loan backed by Fannie or Freddie (check)
  • Mortgage payments made on time in the past 12 months (check)
  • Not an FHA, USDA or jumbo loan (check)
  • No appraisal required (CHECK)
  • No PMI (CHECK)
  • No closing costs (CHECK)
I promptly called the refinance number dedicated to HARP 2.0 at the bank.  They got me started on my packet right away.  Sure it’s a lot to read over, sign and get notarized but that was done within a week and we closed (we did not have to actually go to a closing) within three weeks with a new interest rate of 4% and savings of close to $500/month on our mortgage payment.  The bank did do a paper appraisal and it came in at 118% LTV.  That tells me the market is heading in the right direction!  We are loving our new mortgage payment and we also enjoyed the one month break on payments that the refinance afforded us.  Now we can put that money towards other bills and savings.
If you are underwater on your mortgage and have had trouble refinancing and meet the requirements above I highly recommend you contact your bank to see if you can do a HARP.  Interest rates are extremely low right now.  If we had waited a month to refinance we could have locked at 3.75% which would have been even better but then again the rates could have been higher.  We are happy campers!

Dan Green with Waterstone Mortgage has done a great job with Q&A’s so if you have more questions check out his article – click for more information.

By: Miranda Opiela

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