in Musings

A high bar for refinancing

Kelly and I recently decided to jump on the recent (and absurdly low) 4% mortgage rates and started the process to refinance our home. Though we have sterling credit, this is the third home we’ve owned, and would be our fifth mortgage, by the hoops we’ve had to jump through you’d have thought we were clueless about the whole process.

Certainly this isn’t the go-go 2000s, when I could buy a house without having a job (while erroneously having my brother’s mortgage on my credit report, too!), but the due diligence of the mortgage broker has been remarkable. We’ve had an appraisal of the house done, supplied far more financial documentation than ever, and had employment verification calls done on our behalf. I was even asked about a business the former owner of our home used to have here, possibly because it showed up on some report.

While the one we’ve been working with has been pleasant throughout the process, it seems mortgage brokers are going out of their way to make this as challenging as possible. It made Kelly ponder that if we have great credit and it’s this hard for us to get a loan, just who exactly are they lending money to?

  1. I completed the online form to get pre-approved with my own bank for a car loan. They wanted last 2 paystubs ans last year’s W2s…for a freaking car loan. Did I mention that this is my bank – so they know exactly how much I’ve been depositing every two weeks.

    Then when I bought the car, Toyota gave me 0% financing based on nothing but my credit score.

  2. We refinanced about a year and a half ago and I don’t remember it being that hard to do. But, it was the first time we’ve ever refinanced so I don’t really have much to compare against.

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