GA Bad Credit Mortgages: FHA Refinance During The Mortgage Crisis

One cannot watch television for 5 minutes or read the newspaper without seeing more news about the meltdown of the financial markets and the mortgage industry. Conventional mortgage guidelines may be stricter than they have ever been. Qualifying for a conventional mortgage gets tougher every day.

This meltdown is occurring at the same time a record number of adjustable rate mortgages are set to begin their rate adjustments. Because these ARMs usually had initial teaser rates that were artificially low, if you have an adjustable rate mortgage there is a near 100% chance that your rate will be going up. Most of the time, this first rate adjustment will be several percentage points. It is not uncommon right now for a mortgage that has had an interest rate in the low 5’s to be adjusting up to the 8 or 8.5 percent range! If you have a subprime loan, this increase may be from 6.5 percent to 9.5 percent or more! Borrowers who are unprepared for this will have their mortgage end up as part of the delinquency rate statistics talked about on the evening news.

If you having difficulty fitting into the new tighter conventional mortgage guidelines due to past credit problems or because your home’s value has not gone up as fast as you hoped, there may be a very good option if your loan amount is below $346,250 in more populated Georgia counties and $271,050 in more rural Georgia counties. The solution is to try to qualify for an FHA loan.

FHA loans allow you to refinance with higher ratios of debt in relationship to your total income. FHA loans allow you to get a mortgage even with credit problems as long as you have a good explanation and the problems have been solved or the new mortgage will help solve them. FHA loans also allow a loan amount that is as high as 97% of the value of your home if necessary.

Don’t just give up if you currently have an adjustable rate mortgage and you know the payment is about to go up. Call a HUD approved FHA lender to find out if this very good option is open in your situation. You may be very glad you did.