Has anyone refinanced there house

**jenloveschip2001** · 02-05-2008, 08:44 AM

I was wondering if maybe I should look into refinancing our mortgage since the feds keep lowering the intrest rates. Right now we owe $82150 @ 6.5% intrest. It is locked in. We still have 29 yrs left on this loan. Any suggestions?

**nodmicks** · 02-05-2008, 08:54 AM

I don't have a suggestion but I sure want to see the answers. We owe 52K and have 20 years left at 6.62apr.

**banana** · 02-05-2008, 09:04 AM

Im looking for suggestion too. I was hoping the rates would be lower than what they are.

**nodmicks** · 02-05-2008, 09:08 AM

Running a calculator at the current 15 year rate it looks like I could do about the same by paying about 100 more a month.

**pinetree** · 02-06-2008, 05:13 PM

I have been watching the rates. They say the Feds might lower them again this next week.

Our bank (Wells Fargo) will do a no cost refinancing. They say to redo when it drops at least 1 point, but my banker told me if its a no cost do it at a half point. I haven't figured up the numbers yet, to see if it will save any.

I am looking at the lower payment for now, with the so called recession. When things pick up a person could almost make double payments and wipe the whole thing out.

Does that make any sense?

**TheRootedNomad** · 02-07-2008, 07:55 AM

We refinanced when we could drop our intrest .75 of a percent. It was a no cost directly through our current morg company (who wanted us to take out more money- which we didn't). We refinanced at a 15 instead of a 30 as it was just about $60 or so dollars more a month and cut tons of intrest and payments off. We should have refinanced way before we did just to cut down to a 15 year, forget-about the intrest. It ends up saving you TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS IN INTREST! Run the time lines on a morg calculator and look for the overall payment difference.

**pkellyc** · 02-07-2008, 12:18 PM

Lots of interesting articles at Bankrate.com. We refinanced a few years ago, I figured the new mortage intersest rate needed to at least 1% lower than what I was paying and I paid close attention to the closing costs.

**Amanda W** · 02-07-2008, 01:47 PM

We're looking to refinance in April or May. I'm praying the rates will remain low until then. We got a 30-year mortgage at 6.5% a little over four years ago. This was far before our frugal days, so we paid almost nothing down and have to pay PMI every month. But we should have 20% equity very soon and are hoping to refinance to a 15-year at a much lower rate and without PMI. The payments should only be about $50 a month more. I don't know if our bank does no-cost refinances. If not, we're going to go with our local credit union.

**MVS0122** · 02-08-2008, 07:14 AM

Originally Posted by pinetree

I have been watching the rates. They say the Feds might lower them again this next week.

Our bank (Wells Fargo) will do a no cost refinancing. They say to redo when it drops at least 1 point, but my banker told me if its a no cost do it at a half point. I haven't figured up the numbers yet, to see if it will save any.

I am looking at the lower payment for now, with the so called recession. When things pick up a person could almost make double payments and wipe the whole thing out.

Does that make any sense?

We go through Wells Fargo too, and I was not aware of the no-cost refinancing so thank you for that information! The bank told me it generally takes some time for the mortgage rates to fall after the feds cut the prime so I signed up for email alerts and have been watching and waiting. We are at 5.625 currently for a 30 year loan but I'd like to see it go down enough that we could do a 15 year loan instead without a huge increase in payments.

**CYork** · 02-08-2008, 09:18 PM

Beware of "no-cost refi's." The lender must make their money somewhere. They either add the closing costs to the balance of the loan (so you're paying more in the long run) or they increase the interest rate. There is absolutely no such thing as a no-cost refi.

Also, many (if not most) lenders will not do a refi for a mortgage balance less than $100K or $150K.

**MVS0122** · 02-08-2008, 10:01 PM

That's good to know. Today's rates were actually higher than what we got 4 years ago so it's not going in the direction I wanted it to - maybe I won't have to worry about it...

**frugalfarmwife** · 02-08-2008, 11:20 PM

I'm actually about to start on an interesting journey, to see about resurveying and doing a refi. Unfortunately in Ohio banks will not give a conventional mortage on anything over 5 acres so you have to do a commercial loan, which is NOT fun and what we have right now, soooo, could get interesting.

We actually own 5 parcels of land, 4 parcels of farmland free and clear and then 48 acres with several barns and the house, have the loan on this piece of property. I'm going to look into the cost of resurverying, cutting the house and barns and 5 acres out and doing a regular mortage. The house alone for insurance purposes is worth well more than what we owe, so it should be doable, and if so I could possibly cut as much as 2.5% off our our interest rates.

And people wonder why no one wants to farm anymore, you can't AFFORD it, ugh.

kj

**McD** · 02-09-2008, 09:31 AM

A lot of banks, especially the local ones, do refi mortgages under 100K. Last week alone our lenders had 5 refis, ranging from 30K to 90K.

**pinetree** · 02-11-2008, 06:26 PM

We did a no cost refi about 2 years ago. It actually did not cost me a penny, except gas to go into town to have the papers notorized.

The only thing we did notice is that it added the years back onto the loan. So you start out again with 30 years. Which I guess if you figure it out is alot of money in interest.

**cottageliving** · 02-12-2008, 11:02 PM

My recommendation is this:

Since your current 30 year fixed rate mortgage loan is at 6.50%, I would suggest simply paying extra to the principal each month. That will reduce your term from 30 years and will cost you nothing at all.

I have been in the mortgage business for over 20 years. If you refi with your existing lender and they will give you a true no-cost refi with no cash back at closing, then you can benefit if the fixed rate is 5.50% or less based on your balance listed in your posting.

Again - the easiest and most cost effective route is to pay an extra month's principal (or more) with each payment.

Good luck!