Too good to be true offer!

[jp1]

The title of this post is snark. Today we received a letter from our mortgage broker that we can refinance and take out $113,000 if we want. Doing that would increase our monthly payment from $2216 to $3335 and reset our 1 1/2 year old 30 year fixed mortgage to a new 30 year fixed mortgage with the interest rate increasing from 2.2216% to 4.25%.

We still owe $560,000 on the mortgage so basically we'd be increasing our monthly payment by 50%, extending the loan a year and a half, and getting $113,000 cash in the process. One would need to be quite desperate for the cash to take up this offer. I've already put it through the shredder.

[bae]

That's just evil and predatory.

I suspect the next few years of inflation/recession/... will produce all sorts of scammy fun for us all.

[pinkytoe]

Realtor told us today that refi loan officers are getting desperate and some are being laid off

[catherine]

Yeah, my mortgage website has a nice chart where you can see how much equity you've accumulated over the past couple of years and you can click on "I want to use my equity"--making it sound like free money.

[jp1]

Realtor told us today that refi loan officers are getting desperate and some are being laid off

Anyone that didn’t refi 1 1/2 to 2 years ago missed out. Back when we bought basically everyone we knew that already owned was doing a refi. Interest rates won’t be coming down for a while so, yeah, there’s not much demand for refi loan officers today.

[bae]

To help with cash-flow management, and/or tax planning, for years now I've been making use of a Home Equity Line of Credit from my local small bank. It's fixed-rate, at a pretty decent rate, and they don't seem to mind when I go for years without bothering to use it.

I suspect it may be helpful in the upcoming recession/stock market unpleasantness.

[iris lilies]

As an old person I have to comment on the days where I was first considering buying a house and interest rates where as high as 16%. Yes that’s mortgage interest rates.

You young’uns don’t know ‘bout interest REAL interest rates.

[Alan]

As an old person I have to comment on the days where I was first considering buying a house and interest rates where as high as 16%. Yes that’s mortgage interest rates.

You young’uns don’t know ‘bout interest REAL interest rates.

We bought our first house in 1979 and were able to lock in a VA loan at 10%, which I thought was outrageous at the time but soon became thankful to get in before the high teens kicked in.

[sweetana3]

Yes, I remember 13% mortgage interest. My husband did not invest in Certificates of Deposit at that time but I was more cautious and felt they were very safe. Got a nice return. Learned to pay off all debt too. Those interest payments were irritating.

[catherine]

I bought my first house in 1980 @13% interest. I had a friend in my neighborhood who actually put his down payment on credit cards, which sounded horrific to me at the time, but the interest rates on his credit cards might have been better than the mortgage rates.