Mortgages: Refinance or Purchase at 3.125% with $0 closing costs or even a credit towards closing with Box Home Loans

Quote from stgermaine : Provident is excellent but they want a 80/20 minimum ratio. I was 82/18 and no go.

That means they will only give a loan/refinance worth 80% of the appraised value right?

Quote from RUsum1 : That means they will only give a loan/refinance worth 80% of the appraised value right?

As I understand it, yes. I started out with 70/30 b/c I had a decent downpayment, but b/c of the housing market, my house has depreciated to the point where I owe 82%.

I'm looking for a cheap rate on a rental refi if anyone has any ideas.

Quote from stgermaine : As I understand it, yes. I started out with 70/30 b/c I had a decent downpayment, but b/c of the housing market, my house has depreciated to the point where I owe 82%.

Maybe it just is something to do with your state or because it is a condo but 2 months ago I refinanced with Provident and my LTV ratio was over 80 and they didn't have a issue with it. Maybe try calling back again?

Quote from hammester : Maybe it just is something to do with your state or because it is a condo but 2 months ago I refinanced with Provident and my LTV ratio was over 80 and they didn't have a issue with it. Maybe try calling back again?

I have a free standing house, and actually they would have done the refi but they wanted full on closing costs if the ratio was off (that was the comment I was replying to originally...about closing costs and someone asked about Provident). I did end up doing a refi at 2.875% for 15 years but paid closing. Local bank. Provident IS really good, though. Just didn't make sense at the time I refi'ed.

Am in the market for a loan (30 yrs fixed) on a new home and i can do 80/20 if i can get a good rate (with no closing fees or a small amount). From what i ve read i have BHL, Provident & PenFed worth looking into.. Anyone with a recent experience chime in and give some tips, would appreciate it.
PS:
PenFed - Am hearing a lot of negative reviews lately on how sloppy their process and LO are.. Is that true ? Doesn't make sense on why they would do that with such a good image from the past.

TIA

My wife and I bought a townhouse about 1.5 years ago, and I recently refinanced through Box Home Loans for a 30 year fixed @ 3.5% ( I rate-locked near the end of February). It was a pretty smooth process, considering that I have FICO score >750 , and LTV was around 65% and I live in a suburb of Los Angeles.
Before I chose BHL, I checked Provident's website and the fact that one could only refinance a condominium only if the existing loan was serviced by Provident turned me away. Plus, the extra rate discount through Slickeals led to a $2600 credit , which made the decision easy.

Here's an approximate timeline of the process:
Day 1: Filled application AND rate-locked online. I got a call back from the loan officer on the same day with general questions. He had to make sure from my previous title documents whether i was re-fi'ing a condo or a townhouse.
Day 2: I uploaded documents to the website. Paid $475 for appraisal to be performed.
Day 5: Appraisal done. Took only 15 min.
Day 6: Good thing I still kept a copy of the title docs from the home purchase, because the BHL's title company had trouble clearing up some previous liens, and they requested those copies. Loan was advanced to initial underwriting stage.
Day 9: Got back the appraisal. I estimated $520,000 home value on the application; appraisal resulted in $535000.
Day 17: GFE rec'd in email.
Day 23: HUD rec'd in email (after I requested it). I had to bring some cash to closing because I hadn't payed the scheduled property taxes yet.
Day 24: Notary came to home for us to sign closing. They gave 2 days to wire funds, but I did it same day.
Day 29: Funds disbursement.

IMO, it was a pretty good experience. Too bad I didn't have many obstacles to make the post more interesting.

Rates have gone down. 30 years I am looking at 3.375% with -$412.5. Will BHL give you those $412 credit back?

Does anyone have any good experiences with a particular Box agent who is good about communication? I tried using them before but wasn't impressed with their communication. Just put an offer in and I need to get my lender situated this week.

Just signed up and locked in my rate @ 3.25. I did notice that while filling in the online application, the address bar in IE did not turn green like it does for other encrypted sites. Also, the confirmation email I received went to my spam box with this warning from gmail 'Be careful with this message. Similar messages were used to steal people's personal information. Unless you trust the sender, don't click links or reply with personal information. Learn more'

Hmmm, I am getting a little worried about ID theft now...

Box has been fine for me so far. I feel like they don't hire the best vendors though.... the appraiser that the AMC sent was pretty unprofessional and had several factual mistakes in the report. The title company made a mistake and thought I had a $500 judgment against my house when in fact there was nothing. Box's legal department had to get it off the title.

Applied 4/8, appraisal on 4/12, signing is today, 4/25.

I'm also not thrilled that in all likelihood the loan will be sold to PennyMac... but I waived escrow so I can't really complain too loudly.

Just wanted to give my feedback. I applied on 4/2 and my loan just funded 4/26. My LTV is around 65% and credit score over 800. I locked in at 3.5%. In hindsight I should have waited another week as rates dropped even more. haha. Oh well. Cant really expect to catch the very bottom.

Overall, it was a very smooth process. They always made sure to call me to ask if I had any questions and to let me know how things were progressing.

Similar experience with Box, locked on 3/29, closed on 4/16 and funded on 4/22. Very easy and informative team/process - had couple of minor communication delays due to loan officer being on vacation but easily resolved via the pre-processor/processor. Appraisal came in higher than what I had put in as estimated loan amount and they worked with me to adjust the amounts so that I did not have to bring as much money to the table to close. Overall, highly recommended.

Quote from sullim4 : Box has been fine for me so far. I feel like they don't hire the best vendors though.... the appraiser that the AMC sent was pretty unprofessional and had several factual mistakes in the report. The title company made a mistake and thought I had a $500 judgment against my house when in fact there was nothing. Box's legal department had to get it off the title. Applied 4/8, appraisal on 4/12, signing is today, 4/25. I'm also not thrilled that in all likelihood the loan will be sold to PennyMac... but I waived escrow so I can't really complain too loudly.

Update: Notary was an hour late this past Thursday, though she called which I appreciated... and it was due to a difficult client at a prior signing, so not her fault. Funding should come tomorrow, yay!

I do want to point out that despite the third party vendors leaving a lot to be desired, my processor has been 5 stars all the way. She did all of the legwork to get the bogus judgment off of the title report, and also modified the HUD-1 at my request after I had signed and wired money to escrow due to the county finally posting my property taxes as paid.

IMO, the experience with Box has been better than my previous refi with CashCall, but as always YMMV. My two refis have shown that the smoothness of the experience has been completely dependent on the processor that gets assigned to your file - the loan officer is pretty irrelevant, the appraiser is picked at random from a pool (so you have little control), and the title/escrow company have been poor both times (CashCall used WFG Title Services, Box has been using Linear).