Poor Credit Mortgage Refinancing

By: Melina Menny
Submitted: 2008-07-14 18:03:58
Print this article | Tell a friend | For publisher |

Rating:

 

If you own your own home but you don’t have the credit rating you’d like to, you still have lots of refinancing options available. With more and more lenders joining the mortgage market each day, there are hundreds of loan products and lenders ready to meet your poor credit mortgage refinancing needs immediately.

Find a mortgage broker

One of the easiest ways to find the refinance loan you need is to use a mortgage broker. A mortgage broker works with a variety of different lenders in order to secure your mortgage refinancing. Most mortgage brokers work with many different finance companies with a wide variety of choices, so they almost always have a few poor credit mortgage lenders on their file list.

The advantage of using a mortgage broker is that the heavy duty work is off your plate – you only need to fill out one application, and the broker does all the work from there. Only one credit check is performed, so you don’t have to worry about several lenders pulling your credit record at once.

As you try to choose the right mortgage broker to meet your needs, be sure that you consider the following. Find a broker who works with several loan companies so you’ll have a better chance at getting the loan product that meets your needs. As about the availability of Good Faith Estimates with each quote, and be sure to ask about the timeline to close with each offer. Finally, make sure your broker is available to answer all of your questions.

Once the mortgage broker has your information and application, he or she will submit it to their lending companies, and you’ll probably have several offers on your hands. The offers will consist of the interest rate being offered to you and the terms of the refinancing.

Exploring Your Loan Options

Refinancing your mortgage is essentially the process of replacing your first loan, and that means you can expect to see lots of different mortgage options. Looking carefully at loan types before you apply with a mortgage broker or lender is a great way to help sort through the offers available.

Fixed Rate Loans

Fixed rate mortgages are those that have one interest rate throughout the entire life of the loan. That means that you can expect one payment amount every single month. A great tool for people on a tight budget, a fixed rate mortgage is a predictable way to meet your housing needs. These kinds of loans usually come in fifteen, twenty, and thirty year loans, but there are other fixed rate mortgage options, so examine them carefully before you make your final choice.

Adjustable Rate Loans

Adjustable rate mortgages have interest rates that can change during the life of the loan. In most cases, an adjustable rate mortgage can adjust every one, three, five, or seven years. If the market rates go up during your adjustment period, you can expect your house payment to increase as well. Should the market rates fall during any given adjustment period, your house payments will also decrease. Most of these kinds of loans have an adjustment period cap on them to ensure your payment doesn’t change too much during any given adjustment cycle.

Within the world of adjustable rate mortgages, there are lots of different kinds of loans. Interest-only loans allow you to pay just the interest on your loan during the first five years. This is a great way to save money if you expect your salary to increase after the first few years of owning your home. Fifty year mortgages allow you to stretch your repayment period to as long as fifty years, and that can help you get in the house you truly want. Talk with your lender about the adjustable rate mortgage that might best fit your refinancing needs.

Cash-out Refinancing

In addition to getting different traditional mortgages, you can also turn the equity into cash during the mortgage refinance process. The equity in your home is the difference between your home’s value and what you currently owe on the loan. For example, if your home is worth $150,000, but you only owe $80,000, you have $70,000 of equity in your home that you can turn into cash during poor credit mortgage refinancing.

Getting the Best Rate

If you do end up with a significantly higher interest rate than you’d like to see, you can increase  your credit rating. Paying your mortgage payments on time is a good way to raise your credit rating – every mortgage lender reports to the three major credit bureaus often. The three main credit bureaus are Experian, TransUnion and Equifax – if you’re unsure of your credit history and rating and why it is ‘poor’, ask for your free copy of your credit report from each of the agencies. You generally get one free report each year from each bureau and you should take advantage of this – check out your credit record for discrepancies and errors that could cause your credit rating to plummet.

These reports are what your mortgage broker, and the lenders applied to for your mortgage refinancing, will see. Once you’re aware of the problem, you can begin changing your budgeting lifestyle to correct the issues.

Finding Mortgage Refinancing is easy when you work with a mortgage broker instead of tackling the lenders head on themselves.  It’s not a bad idea to go ahead and check out some of the online poor credit mortgage refinancing lenders as well on your own, so you can see if their rates are better than the ones your broker offered you. Sometimes the knowledge that there are other offers on the table with lower interest rates will encourage more refinancing lenders to reconsider your application and offer a better rate, just to get your business.

Using a  mortgage broker  is free for borrowers – they are paid in points from the financing companies that they place business with. Talk to a mortgage broker about your poor credit and your situation and see if they are able to help you. There are plenty of mortgage brokers available throughout the country, so finding one that is willing to help you find poor credit mortgage refinancing shouldn’t be a problem.

Article source: Expert Articles