Refinanced Lately?

[fidgiegirl]

DH and I are considering a refi already. Some people on Mr. Money Mustache forums are talking about refis under 3% on 15 year loans or 30 year ARMs. I think we'll still opt for a 30 year conventional, but the published rates are amazing.

Anyone refi-ed lately, or seen any good deals? Have any advice?

Our loan is really new, and it's at 4.125% now. So essentially we'd be starting over with a lower rate. I think even if we have to pay CCs it would be worth it.

[try2bfrugal]

I refinance with no cost, no point loans every time rates go down. I am on my second one this year and will probably start the next one before the ink is dry on the closing papers for refi #2 since rates went down again in our lock period. They agreed to go down a little bit during the lock but not to the rates places like Amerisave are offering right now.

[fidgiegirl]

Is that who you typically work with, try2bfrugal? Or someone else?

[try2bfrugal]

Is that who you typically work with, try2bfrugal? Or someone else?

I refinanced this year twice with our local credit union, but I use Amerisave's rates to try to negotiate a lower rate with the credit union than what they initially offer.

If you look on fatwallet and boglehead forums and search for the refinancing threads you will probably find some good suggestions for national lenders. Amerisave seems to be one many people are using right now. I went with the local credit union so I could get a home equity loan at the same time as the mortgage. I have not shopped rates yet for the next refinance so I do not know who we will be using.

[Rosemary]

Now I'm thinking of refinancing too.. we did a couple of years ago and are at 3.75 on a 15-year, but the payoff for Amerisave's current rate is less than a year.

[fidgiegirl]

I am pretty pumped about this, you guys! We might even be able to do a 20 year loan or a 25 without changing our payments appreciably . . .and roll in the LOC!

[heydude]

I refinanced with HARP, Obama's program for home owners under water. Are you under water? If so, you should do that. I got a 30 yr (which had 25 yrs left on it) down to a 15 year! Woo hoo! Your loan needs to be owned by Freddy or Fannie, but most are. Even if some bank runs your mortgage, most all loans are in fact "backed" by freddie or fannie.

[fidgiegirl]

Thanks all for the advice! Heydude, we are not underwater, but I appreciate the advice anyway.

I looked at Amerisave, but they have a lot of complaints that have been filed with BBB. I put in at Lending Tree and man, did the phone start ringing! I did call one place back and they are going to see with their lenders what they can do for us. But it's not looking like it will be less than 3. Still, low 3%s would be worth it if not a lot of closing costs.

Will keep updating! We plan to start paying the mortgage aggressively after bulking up the car fund and EF, so anything will help.

[fidgiegirl]

Rosemary, do you have a good calculator to assess whether a refi is worth it? Sounded from your post like you might. I find a lot of Google-able calculators to be lacking, but The Mortgage Professor (http://www.mtgprofessor.com/refinancing.htm) is overwhelming.

[Rosemary]

I used a calculator on MSN that I found by searching "should i refinance" - it was pretty simple.

[fidgiegirl]

Thanks, Rosemary.

I am getting excited again. I took the advice in this thread (http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/forum/investor-alley/just-refi%27d-mortgage-for-2-75/msg20376/#msg20376) over at MMM Forums (ok, I'll admit, I've started hanging out there a little, too . . . ) and used a comparison site to get some rate quotes. It was a little stressful to get all those calls cascading in immediately after hitting "submit," but I learned a lot throughout the day. I have 2 places seriously looking at our situation. I am hopeful that we might, might be able to do a 15 at less than 3%. That would save SO MUCH money over the life of the loan, but it would increase the payment. I will just have to wait until tomorrow to find out by how much.

[Rosemary]

Thanks for the tip about the bad BBB reviews. It reminded me of why we went with a large bank (WF) last time we refi'd - because when we used a mortgage broker we got really crummy customer service from the banks she went with. I sent an email to our broker at WF to start the discussion. They post their rates online daily and the 15-year is currently <3% (though APR is above 3).

[try2bfrugal]

I have never used Amerisave myself so far, but there are many positive threads about them from regulars at the Bogleheads forum. One thing to keep in mind is that there are a national lender with probably a pretty large number of customers considering their rates, so even if they only have .01% complaint rate in sheer number of BBB complaints it is going to be a much higher number of complaints than a local lender with a 5% complaint rate but a much smaller number of customers.

I looked at the BBB reports before using a Home Depot for some home improvement work, but I am not sure the BBB numbers are meaningful for national companies because it is hard to tell what that rate of complaints is from the reports. Any place that has tens of thousands or even millions of customers a year is going to have a lot of complaints no matter what just because there are always a certain percent of unreasonable customers for any business.

[fidgiegirl]

I have never used Amerisave myself so far, but there are many positive threads about them from regulars at the Bogleheads forum. One thing to keep in mind is that there are a national lender with probably a pretty large number of customers considering their rates, so even if they only have .01% complaint rate in sheer number of BBB complaints it is going to be a much higher number of complaints than a local lender with a 5% complaint rate but a much smaller number of customers.

I looked at the BBB reports before using a Home Depot for some home improvement work, but I am not sure the BBB numbers are meaningful for national companies because it is hard to tell what that rate of complaints is from the reports. Any place that has tens of thousands or even millions of customers a year is going to have a lot of complaints no matter what just because there are always a certain percent of unreasonable customers for any business.

That is true. I had wondered about that, but like you said, there is no way on the BBB site to tell the volume of their business.

[larknm]

fidgiegirl, you're taking a much more informed, sophisticated approach to this than we did, but we just refi'd (our rate had been 6.25, now is 3.9% fixed, 30 yaer). That's on our first and way biggest of two mortgages. The second mortgage has always been at 3%. We were underwater and used Fannie. Now we are working like wild to pay off the second mortgage, living really minimally to do so and can thereby probably do it in 10 months.

At that point our monthly payment will be $900, which we think is the best we can do, and we hope that if one of us dies before the other, that other can handle this mortgage. Before refi our total mortgage payment every month was $1,500.

I really hope refi works for you and you get the low rate you want and 15 or 2 or 25 years. It sounds good to wish for all that and try to make it happen.

[fidgiegirl]

Thanks, larknm!

Interestingly, this has kind of stalled. The one woman I liked never got back to me with numbers. So weird. Another company did get us an offer of 3.5%. I need to talk with DH about it. And a third, Discover Home Loans, called us like 12 times! I should probably call him back. Maybe he will be better than 3.5% gal.

[jennipurrr]

I am in the process of my second refinance this year. Both on rental properties through HARP. Not quite at the rates you are getting, but definitely worth it for both loans...right around 4%. The properties aren't underwater, but there are very few options to refi rentals without significant equity. With both they are going from a 30 year to a 20 year (one we have owned 5 years and the other 6) so shaving a few years off the term and lowering the payment by about $100/mo on each. Its been a tedious process, but worth it for the first one and almost about to close on the second.

[fidgiegirl]

Updating some threads tonight!

We are still working on this! We have a nice lady and she is about to tell us the numbers she's run. Let's hope they are good enough to move ahead. I've spent quite a lot of time dealing with dead-end people.

[hutad]

For what it's worth, I used a Credit Union - Emery FCU - for my HARP 2 refinance. I just closed 8 days ago on my primary home and we dropped our rate from 5.8% to 4.2%. We were underwater about 160% and are saving about $350 per month. The only hiccup was that we had to subordinate the second mortgage.

I'd shop around for the best lender as right now, you have historic low rates. Many lenders will heavily compete for your business right now. The HARP loan (http://harp2refi.net) program is great because we not only refinanced our primary home but will be refinancing our rental properties too. They are not nearly as underwater but the rates are quite high (in the high 5s).

[treehugger]

DH and I are in the middle of the refinancing process. We are ever-so-slightly *not* underwater, but we (thankfully!) qualify for the HARP program and I think we will be approved. Ugh, this whole thing is so anti-consumer and stressful and demoralizing. I certainly realize that loan applicants should be carefully vetted and all that, but the way the industry is set up, it's nearly impossible to shop around or feel like one has any control or say in the whole business.

Long, boring story, but we first started with a local bank recommended by a friend. They pressured us immediately (within the first 2 minutes of the first phone call) to pay a fee to lock the rate (otherwise, no guarantees about the rate we would end up with) and then to also pay for the home assessment. I stupidly did so (I totally take responsibility for this) and then we started the approval process. Weeks go by and we hear nothing. Then they send an assessor out and we get the assessment done (which is stressful enough; wow it's depressing to look at my run-down 1971 home through an assessor's eyes and camera lens). Weeks more go by and we hear nothing (calls resulted in, "Yes, everything is going fine, it's with the underwriters, you should hear something soon).

So, we started an exploratory conversation with a family member's long-time loan agent. She is so much more pleasant and helpful and easy to deal with. But she tells us that we cannot reuse the home assessment already done, even though we paid ($350) for it and have a digital copy. By law, it is owned by the bank it was commissioned by. So, here's how it's nearly impossible to shop around for a rate: banks and agencies are reluctant to quote rates since they change by the minute, without locking them. They can't be locked without a home assessment (and sometimes a locking fee [another $3-400]) and approval. It's a merry-go-round of anti-consumer laws.

Small bidding war ensues between bank and independent loan agent, with bank using scare tactics and basically making us feel really bad for paying them for their time (that locking fee/deposit) and then shopping around after they left us hanging. We ended up getting a better rate *and* MUCH better service from the independent loan agent, so even though we are out money from having stupidly started with the local bank, we will come out ahead in the end (loan agent agreed to waive her appraisal fee once we explained the circumstances). That is, if it finally goes through. Waiting, waiting.

All of this stress about maybe not being approved is compounded by applying for refinance through our credit union in 2009, going through the whole process, including $350 appraisal fee, and then being denied because my husband wasn't making enough money (he was on dialysis and in school, and only working part time). Our income is much better now, but nothing is certain. And all this time, we have never missed a single mortgage payment (of $2475 a month, mind you) and have pretty good credit.

Assuming this all works (I am hesitantly confident at this point), HARP will be the only that rescues us. We stand to save $750 a month, by the way, once the deal is done. Whew!

Kara

[fidgiegirl]

So glad you are able to get it done, Kara - fingers crossed.

We are moving ahead with ours as well. We are using a broker who will get us 3.5% (most likely - have to have the appraisal first). And this reminds me, I have to call her back!