Okay, So I know that I am not the only one on this forum that has refinanced student loans over to SOFI, but I wanted to give my experience refinancing to them as a stay-at-home mom (SAHM). Both my husband and I refinanced to Sofi and applied the same day, but our experiences were a bit different.
First, I'll start off by describing my husband's experience. He is a senior software developer making 90K a year. He applied and was fully approved and funded in about a week. They have you submit a copy of identification, your 10-day payoff information for your loans, and a recent paystub. He refinanced two student loans that were 6.55% and the rate he got on a fixed 5-year term was 4.74% (after a .25% discount for using auto-pay). His experience went very smoothly and was very easy. He has an excellent credit score and aside from our mortgage, we only have student loan debt.
Now, to my experience as a SAHM. As I stated earlier, I applied the same day as him. However, as a SAHM, I have no paystubs showing any personal income. I contacted SOFI about this, and they said that I could have a co-signer, so my husband served as my co-signer on the loan (we share all of our finances, and although he is the one that brings home the paycheck, I am the one that primarily manages everything). My husband filled out the co-signer information the same day as I applied for my loan (which was also the same day as he applied for his). My application sat there with out being approved for several weeks. I contacted them every couple of days to try to push things along, but this didn't seem to help any. My husband even had to re-submit his paystubs because they have to be dated within the last 30 days, and the processes itself took longer than that for me. That was pretty frustrating. They said they normally are approved in 24-72 hours (as my husband's was), so I can only assume
mine took (in the end) over a month to approve is because I had a cosigner. I also refinanced two student loans that were at 6.55% and I also got the same rate and term as my husband. I also have excellent credit.
So in the end, the point of this is---if you are a stay at home parent, or non-income earning spouse or whatever---it is possible that you can still refinance through SOFI by using a cosigner. I was able to. Just be patient and check in with them periodically to see if they are needing anything from you.
Also, if you are in a sitution like us where you are paying off student loans very, very quickly--their variable interest rates may be the way to go for you. They are even lower than the fixed rates. We would have gone with that option, but I guess it isn't allowed in our state (Minnesota) due to state laws/reguations.
I hope you find this information helpful!
If you decide to refinance through them, I would appreciate it greatly if you would use my referral link below:
www.sofi.com/refer/4/11827You will get $100 and I will get $300 if you use this link when you apply.
I would be happy to answer anyone's questions about SOFI, or would love to hear about other experiences.