You may not just wake up one morning and walk into a bank or a mortgage refinance institution, apply and get a refinance loan instantly. Getting a mortgage refinance is a process that may take up to two weeks to be granted. This is because banks and other mortgage refinance institutions need to undertake some necessary checks just to ensure that their money will be safe and that you will repay the loan.

The following are some of the issues that mortgage refinance institutions and banks look into to determine whether you qualify for a mortgage refinancing or not:

- Your earnings - A mortgage refinance lending institution will strive to ascertain your total monthly earnings to be sure that you will be in a position to safely service the loan. Apart from the documents that you may provide as proof of your monthly earnings, the bank will go ahead and make further checks to confirm the same.

- Your Debts - A bank or mortgage refinancing institution will collect all the relevant information relating to your debts and establish whether you will be able to repay the loan or not. In most cases, they will compare your debts against your monthly earnings. This is commonly referred to as Debt to Income (DTI) Ratio, of which different banks and institutions have different percentages.

- Your house value in relation to the loan you apply for - This is very important in determining whether you qualify for mortgage refinancing or not. Most mortgage refinancing institutions divide the loan you apply for by the value of your house, in what is referred to as Loan to Value (LTV) Ratio, which should yield a percentage of 80% and above.

- Your bills - This one area often ignored by most mortgage refinance seekers. The only fact that you receive bills puts you in a good position to qualify for a mortgage refinance. However, the determining factor here is how you pay your bills. Paying your bills in time (not on time) greatly increases your chances of qualifying for mortgage refinance.

- Your credit scores and reports - Your credit scores and credit history greatly influence whether you qualify for a mortgage refinance or not. Having a higher credit score definitely puts you in a good position of qualifying for a mortgage refinance. This however does not mean that a one-time high credit score will make you qualify. You need to have a constant high credit score to qualify.

Your credit reports are also important as they are used to determine whether you can be trusted or not. Contrary to what most people believe, having a long credit report spanning several years does not necessarily mean that you cannot qualify for a mortgage refinance. Having a long credit report actually boosts your chances of qualifying.

You can easily get your credit scores and reports from the three main credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax and TransUnion) online and know in advance whether you will qualify for a mortgage refinance or not.