Refinancing process?

[WallyxD]

I wanted to know how the refinancing process is?  I feel bad about the monthly payments both my brother and mom have to pay on their cars. (20% APR on both, and my mom cosigned for my brother on one of them).  The payments are $464 for my mom's car and $364 for my brother's.  

Should they just apply for refinancing at say, 5 different places just to see what happens?  And those 5 applications will be treated as one when it comes to FICO scoring, right?  My brother's credit should have improved a bit, but I'm not sure about my mom because she has a couple 30 day lates on her car.

So, is the preapproval process easy?

[webhopper]

I would suggest that instead of just applying to five random places, they should join either a local credit union or maybe a national one like DCU.

CUs will generally be able to work with them if there is clean payment history on the existing loan and no sign of financial trouble such as missed payments.

Whatever you do, don't offer to co sign

[WallyxD]

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@webhopper wrote:
I would suggest that instead of just applying to five random places, they should join either a local credit union or maybe a national one like DCU.

CUs will generally be able to work with them if there is clean payment history on the existing loan and no sign of financial trouble such as missed payments.

Whatever you do, don't offer to co sign

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Haha, I didn't mean random, guess I should have worded it better. I meant one with their CU, one with Capital One, one with their banking institution, and so on.  I actually saw someone on here recently get approved through Capital One with a profile similar to my mom's, with the exception of annual income, so that definitely gives me some hope for her being able to refinance somewhere.

And I'm in no position to cosign (not bad credit, just young credit, high util, extremely low income) so no worries there lol.  I'll suggest to them that they start with their credit union.

Also, I'm 90% sure my mom's upside down on her loan, will that have any effect on her being able to refinance?

[StartingOver10]

the value of the vehicle is important. The lender, any lender, will limit the amount that can be financed/refianced on the vehicle. Does your mom have access to savings where she can pay down the loan? If not, she might want to see what she can do to raise the funds to pay down the negative equity in her vehicle. (Sell things around the house, get a second job, etc). Her payment is high. She would be much better off with a CU loan that doesn't keep adding to the negative equity she currently has on her loan (the higher the interest rate the less that gets applied to her principal balance). At 20%, she is probably not paying very much principal at all. The quicker she refi's out of her current loan the better.