The real estate market has been stable and climbing for over a decade, whenever a homeowner's mortgage needed to be addressed for any reason, refinance was the initial thought.
Refinancing was easy; the variety of loan products available was unending.
Easy money coupled with an increasing market gave homeowners the ability to take cash out when needed, lower their interest rate, fix their interest rate, as well as a number of other options.
In today's declining market, easy money is a thing of the past.
Refinancing is available to only a select few.
Nowadays, trying to get approved for a refinancing is extremely difficult.
Wall Street is no longer purchasing loans from originators and banks, lenders have slashed programs and applied stringent requirements for qualifying for a refinance.
Without a government guarantee to buy the loan, most bankers and lenders will not make the funds available for a loan.
The FHA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac are being stretched to the limit and can't possibly keep up with the demand.
As a result their underwriting criteria have tightened and the money supply has also.
New homebuyers and current homeowners looking to get financing must have excellent credit, plenty of equity, job stability, disposable income, assets galore and proof of all of the above.
If any of these conditions can't be met, getting a loan is next to impossible.
When you have little or no equity, there is no option to refinance.
This is true for all borrowers, well qualified or not.
You don't always have to pay huge closing costs to reduce your mortgage's interest rate.
In this type of market, loan modification is the only way to achieve a change in your loan terms that will make it livable.
Study this course and put it to work for you.
Smart homeowners can "modify" their mortgage by negotiating with their existing lender for a reduced interest rate, or re-amortization of their current loan.
Some homeowners who are upside down in their loans may even be able to negotiate a principal balance reduction.
For the time being at least, lenders are approving nearly 90 percent of loan modification requests.
If it's properly prepared and makes sense, they'll probably approve it the first time through.
Unfortunately, if your request is sloppy, missing information or just not very clear they will set it aside and move on to the next one.
They're just inundated with loan modification requests right now.
Loan modification is a laborious process, but the rewards are well worth the time and energy spent negotiating.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - ORIGINAL AUTHOR DANIEL HARRIS