#How to Refinance Your Home Loan With Bad Credit

Looking for a way to refinance your home when you have bad or blemished credit?

You do have refinancing options and you don t need perfect credit to qualify.

Check Out HARP 2

One option to consider is HARP 2, the revamped federal Home Affordable Refinance Program.

There are no loan-to-value restrictions in this refinancing program. But there are a few requirements:

• Your mortgage is owned by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
• Your mortgage was delivered to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac by June 1, 2009.
• You haven t previously used the Making Home Affordable Refinance Program.
• Your loan is not an FHA loan.

The aim of HARP 2 is to make it easier for homeowners who owe much more on their homes than the homes are worth to refinance into lower-rate loans.

Not sure if Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac owns your mortgage? Look-up tools from Fannie and Freddie make it easy to find out.

Get a Free Credit.com Account Sign up for Credit.com and get your FREE Credit Score & Personalized Action Plan to help improve it. Free & updated every 30 days.

Refinance an FHA Loan

If your home loan is insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), be sure to check out your refinancing options as well.

FHA mortgage programs have more lenient qualifying guidelines than other mortgage programs and are easier to refinance.

A downside to financing a home with an FHA loan is the increasing costs of

mortgage insurance premium (MIP) associated with this type of loan.

According to the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development to streamline refinance an FHA loan, the mortgage you would like to refinance must already be FHA-insured and the mortgage must be current and not delinquent. So folks who fell behind on an FHA-insured mortgage are out of luck.

In addition, no cash may be taken out on FHA mortgages refinanced using the streamlined refinanced process and the refinance results must result in lowering a borrower s monthly principal and interest.

To learn more about refinancing an FHA loan, contact any mortgage professional that offers these kinds of loans.

Check Your Credit

Homeowners with less-than-stellar credit who would like to refinance can use the free Credit Report Card to gauge how their credit is recovering and make plans to improve their credit.

It also is a good idea to pull your credit report once a year for free from each of the major credit reporting bureaus.

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Mark

I ve had my loan with Bank of America for several years, told recently qualify for HARP 2 Refinance program by loan officer with Bank of America. Loan officer indicated due to my bankruptcy in 2010, bank loan must be reaffirm. As the bank for whatever reason stop doing refinancing on loans which were not reaffirm after a Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Additionally mention, the bank changes policies all the time, they are not told why, can only follow the current policy in place. You would have really benefited from the HARP2 refinance program.

Thereafter was mention, would have to reopen discharge bankruptcy case from 2010, an reaffirm loan, in order to do HARP 2 refinance. Sounds though the bank is defeating the purpose of assisting home owners in need of assistance by changing policy, not allowing a specific group of home owners the benefit of doing a refinance of home under the HARP 2 program.

My understanding, isn t this partially the reason HARP 2 program was put into place, assist those whom suffered from the economic down turn. I attempted to use another bank, was told can only do HARP 2 refinance with our current bank mortgage holders.

http://www.Credit.com/ Gerri Detweiler

If you are refinancing the loan with HARP2 that was included in your bankruptcy then you must reaffirm it in order to refinance it. But please talk with your bankruptcy attorney before you make such a major decision. if, in the future, you cannot keep up with the payments you may find yourself either on the hook or forced to file again.