HARP-2.0 makes Home Loan Mortgage Refinance Easy and Available to More Underwater Homeowners

Since the collapse of the housing bubble, more and more homeowners have found themselves upside-down in their current home mortgage. As interest rates fell to the current near record lows, those underwater have been unable to refinance their home loan or mortgage, even under HARP, until now.

The Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) was designed to help homeowners who owe more than the value of their home to refinance their home loan at lower rates. However the original HARP program had a cap with only helped those no more than 125% upside-down on their mortgage.

The new HARP 2.0, as it is being called, has no cap on how far underwater the mortgage is. Homeowners can now easily qualify for a home loan refinance regardless of how upside-down their current mortgage may be.

The new HARP refinance program took effect this year, but some software updates at Fanny and Freddie have slowed the process, but should be cleared up soon. Lenders are now rushing to help their current customers get a home loan refinance under the HARP 2 program and will eventually market to other homeowners as well. This will eventually lead to more competition in the rates.

Currently, however, homeowners struggling to make payments on their underwater home loan should expect to be able to refinance the mortgage with their current lender at rates well below 4.5%.

The process is painless for most, requiring no application fees and much of the usual verification processes, appraisals, and other paperwork is not necessary for current customers. Essentially, homeowners qualify under the new HARP if they have been making their payments on time and they are indeed upside-down on their mortgage.

The process is taking as much as 60 days or more just due to the volume of homeowners refinancing their home loans, so be patient.