Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy, so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions.
Key Principles
We value your trust. Our mission is to provide readers with accurate and unbiased information, and we have editorial standards in place to ensure that happens. Our editors and reporters thoroughly fact-check editorial content to ensure the information you’re reading is accurate. We maintain a firewall between our advertisers and our editorial team. Our editorial team does not receive direct compensation from our advertisers.
Editorial Independence
Bankrate’s editorial team writes on behalf of YOU – the reader. Our goal is to give you the best advice to help you make smart personal finance decisions. We follow strict guidelines to ensure that our editorial content is not influenced by advertisers. Our editorial team receives no direct compensation from advertisers, and our content is thoroughly fact-checked to ensure accuracy. So, whether you’re reading an article or a review, you can trust that you’re getting credible and dependable information.
You have money questions. Bankrate has answers. Our experts have been helping you master your money for over four decades. We continually strive to provide consumers with the expert advice and tools needed to succeed throughout life’s financial journey.
Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy, so you can trust that our content is honest and accurate. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. The content created by our editorial staff is objective, factual, and not influenced by our advertisers.
We’re transparent about how we are able to bring quality content, competitive rates, and useful tools to you by explaining how we make money.
Bankrate.com is an independent, advertising-supported publisher and comparison service. We are compensated in exchange for placement of sponsored products and, services, or by you clicking on certain links posted on our site. Therefore, this compensation may impact how, where and in what order products appear within listing categories. Other factors, such as our own proprietary website rules and whether a product is offered in your area or at your self-selected credit score range can also impact how and where products appear on this site. While we strive to provide a wide range offers, Bankrate does not include information about every financial or credit product or service.
Don’t despair — it still may be possible to refinance even if home equity is in short supply. It may not be easy, but the federal government offers alternatives for borrowers underwater on their mortgages.
Millions of Americans across the country owe more on their home loans than the mortgage is worth, thanks to plunging property values in the wake of the housing bust. While today’s low mortgage rates are extremely appealing, many homeowners fear they can’t take advantage of them because they lack home equity.
But with government efforts such as the Home Affordable Refinance Program, or HARP, some homeowners can refinance even if the appraised value of their home is low. For more information, check out the federal government’s Making Home Affordable website.
The HARP program is designed to assist those who have an interest-only mortgage, those whose low introductory rate mortgage will increase in the future or those who face a balloon payment. By refinancing, homeowners get a fixed-rate loan that helps them avoid future payment increases.
More paperwork
Homeowners who still have a good chunk of home equity should find it easier to get a refinance.
However, even these borrowers will be required to provide more income documentation today than was the case several years ago.
Today’s lenders are placing ever-greater scrutiny on the income verification process. Borrowers should expect to provide complete copies of recent tax returns. Other requested paperwork may include bank and investment documents, paycheck stubs and W-2s.
Lenders generally urge borrowers to bring in these documents early, which should help speed up the refinance process. It’s also important to provide every page of a requested document and to avoid altering documents in any way.
Today’s mortgage rates are among the lowest in decades. Whether you have a lot of home equity or a little, a refinance may be waiting for you.
Share