Getting a Mortgage Shouldn’t Be This Hard: Housing Finance Gets ‘Taken to Task’

I have refinanced my house 3 times in the last 24 months, lowering the rate each time, and am now into a fixed 10 year loan with a fixed rate of 3.5%. I have used Quicken Loans all 3 times and have had hardly any troubles or delays. Aaron and his wife used the wrong lender in my humble opinion.

Dont blame the Loan Officer. Blame FANNIE and FREDDIE for tougher guidelines which have to be followed.

In many ways the banks in cahoots with the government regulators got us in this mess by both allowing easy credit without any ability to repay the loans.

Now the banks in cahoots with the government regulators are keeping us in this mess by not allowing the market to recover by continuing to deny borrowers with both good credit and the ability to repay the loans not to buy some of this distressed property.

I have 4 rentals in Az and Nv.....all are current and all are cash flowing. All are at 6.5% and I would love to take advantage of lower rates....No can do. I would love to buy 2 or 3 more at these low prices....no can do. Multiply me by a million or two people that would buy these up and you have a simple answer to the housing crisis. But given our government hiding their head in the sand...No can do.

Let's rename the United States Congress the No Can Do Congress.

I'm having a house built. I could make out better by putting 20% down and getting a loan, keeping the rest of the funds as investments. Since I'm self-employed however, banks won't loan to me even though I have great credit and could easily afford to pay the mortgage. Therefore, I'm bypassing the banks and their continual malingering and paying 100% cash for the house.

In short, no more bank loans for me. Too much hassle. I'll just pay cash from now on.

My wife and I have been trying to get a mortgage and have gotten all kinds of run around. We have great credit scores, own our house outright and its up for sale, and nearly no debt and enough assets to pay cash. The anal exam is ridiculous. The documents requirements keep changing and I keep sending them.

same here, tried to buy a home with good credit and down payment to have it fall through due to lender changing requirments several times. Last told them to pound sand!!!

Right on the Money - My wife and I just closed on a refinance. We have owned the same house for almost 17 years - originally purchased with a 30 years fixed rate and 20% down. Appraisal showed house value at twice the principle for the refinance. Wife and I are both established professionals, each with the same employers for greater than ten years. Our annual salary could payoff the entire loan and have perfect credit history. IT TOOK ALMOST 6 MONTHS !!! Needed to resupply employment and salary info as well as credit histories etc. If we weren't the perfect couple to make a loan to, I don't know how anyone else could ever hope to get a loan.

It is clear that the "wheel" of unfairly justified home loans both on the receiver end and the lender end has stopped turning. The new "wheel" spinning now is one that will not allow either side to leverage unfairly to the other. Say, isn't this what Fannie and Freddie were SUPPOSED to have done?

As long as banks can borrow from the FED at 0% and turn around and buy T-bills with the money banks don't need the consumer, just the taxpayer. The great thing about this little scam is we the taxpayers get to foot the bill for both. Banks borrow money from the taxpayer and then loan it back to us. It's called "carry trades" with little or no risk. You hear Bernanke talk about have plenty of liquidity in the system. Well there is but it's not getting to the public as many have found.

If you are self employed you are screwed. Recently tried to refi. I make six figures and have an 802 credit rating but since I could not supply W2's for the last two years I was turned down, and this is the bank that holds my current mortgage, and I have been paying for years! I am taking Chase here, not some little operation. Not making this up. Really hacked me off.

I know the feeling first hand. Perfect credit trying to refinance into the HARP program that would have lowered my rate from 5.875% to 3.75%. Instead CITIBANK found out that I had made a late payment of $47 on my $1935 mortgage because they had increased my escrow payment by that amount and I didn't know about it. So I had paid my mortage amount on time except for the $47. Now they are using this as an excuse to reject my application. Then again why would they help me refi and lose 2% ???

I recently tried to refinance 90k (on a 118k house) from 8% to 4% and they tried to charge me $5k for the transaction? Sheesh. 5-grand to flip a couple data items in a database. Ridiculous. We didn't do it.

The best way to get a home these days is to get pre-approved before you go shopping. This way the mountain of paperwork required is completed before you go looking. My wife and I went this route and closed on 30 days. Thie will make life alot easier then going the route this commentator is going.

Yes you can still get pre-approved and know what the bank will finance.

We are refinancing a 15 year loan to a 10year loan with the same bank. We both have credit scores well in to the 800's. I have never gone through such an interogation in my life!!! No wonder young people starting out can't get loans.

BINGO.... Just bought an investment property and put money down with the loan balance of 75K....The documentation and time it took to get this was STUPID... as a family we gross over 350K a year and have excellent credit.. I commented to the broker getting this loan together that I can walk into a car dealer and get a 75K loan for a car in an hour... and this took 60+ days.... It s JOKE..

I just went through the process of getting a mortgage to buy a house. I am probably the "perfect borrower" -- everything in the open, W-2s, all boxes ticked. It was the worst two months of my life. The banks were really torturing me, forcing me to spend over a thousand dollars in extra appraisals and app fees, telling me that I will not get my mortgage, asking for non-existent documents. It was hell.

Banks and lenders already produce way too much paper as a result of useless government regulations. I doubt that 1% of buyers read all the paperwork they receive as a result of buying and financing a house. Government does not know how to make paperwork only cover clear and needed information. Buyer beware was the best policy, do your research before buying!

We just recently went through this torture of getting house loan. To validate the fund I use for downpayment from a sale of my previous property, they not only want to the closing doc from my sale, the image copy of the proceeds check, the deposite slip when I took the check to the bank.. And that's still not enough, they wanted a day after day screenshot of my bank account balance from the day I put in the money to the bank till the day when they did the closing to ensure I didn't spend it. And this is only the 5% of the hassal. Forget it. I will never buy another house again!

You must ask yourself why would a lender loan money on an asset that is continuing to decline in value every month. Even with 20% down, there is substantial risk that the value of the house will drop below the loan ammount. It seems logical for them to be a bit concerned. LENDERS WANT TO CHARGE FEES AND INTEREST AND NOT HAVE ANY RISK IS THE REAL ISSUE.

I THOUGHT WE PAID INTEREST TO COMPENSATE THEM FOR TAKING A RISK ON THE LOAN, BUT NOW THEY WANT THE INTEREST AND ABSOLUTELY NO RISK.

It "seemed" like months, but in all actuality how long was it? How long did it take you to supply the self-employed documents they requested? I'm not defending delays, but your article is so vague it doesn't support your point at all. I can only assume you were pre-approved since only an idiot wouldn't be, but your article doesn't cover that either. Personally, after everything we are going through as a country, I would rather see the standards be a little too tight versus too loose.