Anyone refinance their homes before?

nesser1981

nesser1981

Sweet Shoppe SugarBabe
We've been talking about refinancing to get a lower interest rate, but I'm confused on the process.

Did you have to pay closing costs again?
 
It depends on what you negotiate, Vanessa, and what the terms are. But you're basically taking out a new mortage with new terms, so you might have to - or they can roll them in, etc.
 
I've refinanced 2x over the years... (2 different houses)... and both times, I had them roll the closing costs into the new mortgage, so I didn't have to pay anything up front, so to speak. Over the course of a 30-yr mortgage, those closing costs make VERY LITTLE difference in your monthly payment. And if you can get a lower rate that reduces your monthly payment enough to make a difference in your cash flow, it's a great idea.

The catch -- you need to make sure you will be staying in your home long enough to make the refi worthwhile. Like, don't refinance and then move the very next year, if you can help it, which would make the closing costs you had to pay worthless (i.e. you need to stay in the house long enough to save the amt of money you had to pay in order to lower the rate, KWIM?)

Talk to a loan officer at a bank/etc. (wherever you will take out your mortgage, etc.) and they'll help lead you through it.

Beware: LOTS OF PAPERWORK AND SIGNATURES! :) LOL
 
Yes, and we had exactly the same experience as Laura. Both times we had the closing costs rolled back into our loan. But we plan on being in our house long enough that we thought what we would be saving in the drop in interest rate outweighed the closing costs. Also, from the research my husband did, you have to pretty much lower your interest rate at least 1% in order for it to pay off -- not exactly sure how he came to that conclusion, but that was the rule-of-thumb we were going by. And really, it is just like you are selling and rebuying your own home, so the paperwork is the same (or more) as it would be if you were buying a totally different home.
 
Thanks ladies,

I think we're going to go in for an appointment soon. They want an application fee up front if we decide to do it, so I need to have that fee first. ;)
 
We JUST refinanced in December. Best decision ever. And we only need to stay in our house for 1 year to make it worth it. We even opted for a 15 yr instead because interests rates are SO much better. Even changing to a 15 yr, our mortgage is less than before. I should probably add that our interest dropped more than 3%. I wish we had done it sooner!!

And yes, our closing costs were rolled in. We had a couple fees (appraisal is all I can think of) but we also got a month off... so really, it was so so so worth it.
 
We've been in our house for almost 11yrs now and we've refinanced twice in the last couple of years to lower our interest rate and mortgage payment. Both times we rolled our closing costs into the new loan and the only fees we had to pay out of pocket were the appraisal fees which I believe was around $400 maybe.
 
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