Refinance after Short Sale

[Anonymous]

Tricky situation here, would like to hear the expert's thoughts:

• Acquired primary residence with spouse in 2009. Fico score ~760+.
• Short sale on rental property (owned soley by me) in late 2011. Fico score dropped to ~690 (as expected).
• Would like to refinance primary residence to take advantage of lower rates. Bank said that my wife would have to refinance without my name on the mortgage, due to my short sale.
• Refinancing would save $140k+ over the long term in interest.
• Other Notes: Only other debt is credit card which is paid in full each month. No other negative history on report. Utilization ratios are good.

Question: Will I have a harder time rebuilding my credit score back to 740+ range without the primary residence mortgage on my report? Any thoughts on length of time to build it back with and without the primary residence mortgage?

Thanks for any help that can be provided - it's greatly appreciated!

Chris

[pizzadude]

Welcome to the forums !!

Even when the primary residence mortgage is refinanced it will still show on your reports for 10 years from the date closed, and it will contribute towards your mix of credit even as a closed account.     The main issue, as you know, is the Short Sale, which will be on your reports for the next ~7 years and will hurt your scores as long as it is reporting.   

You can still be a FICO high achiever without a mortgage tradeline on your reports, however it's going to take a few years for the FICO ding to decrease on that short sale.  Have you sent any GW letters to the creditor yet ?

[Revelate]

You may want to talk to a different lender as well; I don't know much about the specifics of mortgage underwriting, but lenders do have different criteria, and you're not the only one in this sort of situation with a recent short sale.

The banks are currently running out of people to refi, so I suspect we will see a change in the underwriting criteria sometime this year anyway to make things more accessible.

[AndySoCal]

With some loan programs requires a waiting time period before you are elliglble for the program again.  I beleive it is about two years maybe more. 

[Anonymous]

Thanks all for your feedback! I have not tried the GW letter yet - but doubt they will do this, since they didn't even cancel the debt after the short sale.

Will also see what other lenders might have differnet underwriting options.

Still curious, though, if removing the mortgage (for the forseeable future) hurts my recover much..

Thanks for your help!!

Chris

[bettercreditguy1]

Just a thought. Have you considered just paying aditional principal for a few months? The impact of loan reduction will not be as rapid, however, you would have proved payment history. Additionally, you can "request" a higher payment through your lender. This does not create a refi or new paper work per se.  The New recieved amount will show up on your cras with the "old or current" required payment reporting as well.  This can help you when you attempt to get new credit or a cli on an existing cc as both figures report.