I'm in the low 800's and would refinance our 15 year, 5.5 mortgage, but we only have 5 years left, and since our son is graduating from his expensive out of state university in May (that we've paying full freight for him to attend, the lucky soon to be "engineer/computer science double major graduated guy"), we'll be paying it off sooner than that. The rates are crazy low right now. Anyone who has a 30 year at 5.0 or over should run, not walk, to do a 15 year refinance. The monthly payment will be the same, or less, and you'll really be racking up the equity in a few years. My humble opinion, of course.
My wife just started a new career in the Galleria. Unfortunately, it has been very bit of a 1.5-2 hour commute from here in Magnolia so I think we are going to have to move back closer to Houston by early/mid 2014. Hope the rates are still this low.
I just closed in December, got 3.25% on a 30 year conventional refinance. I guess they may have gone up since then. I have only been in my house about 5 years, and only owned about 5% of it, although it appraised for 20k higher than what I paid, so I'm closer to 16% ownership now. My closing costs were about $7000, but we did it at the end of the year so we had to pay our taxes with the closing. I got back about $3700 from the escrow on our previous mortgage, and didn't have to pay our mortgage for a couple months while the paperwork went through, so I figure the refi cost me about $1000 all told.
My wife an I just refinanced our 30 year fixed loan. We went from 6.5% to 3.5%...saving a bunch of money just before kid #2 comes to take it all.
We just closed on a new home a few weeks ago. Got 3.5% for 30 yrs conventional. We used NFM Lending - they have a local office so it was easy to deal with them.
What are you guys seeing as closing costs? I keep getting all kinds of advertisements stating 'no closing costs'.. as opposed to some place like Quicken Loans, they want to pile on like 6k in closing costs.
No closing cost will most likely mean that they will roll it into your loan. Doesnt mean you are not paying it - just not up front. Our closing costs after all the seller contributions, incentives, lender discounts, etc...were about $1500
If $6K is just what Quicken Loans is charging then yes, thats not right. If its all together then its probably correct depending on the amount of your loan. There are a ton of charges from the lender, the seller, the county, title company, realtor, etc, etc...You want to get the seller to contribute as much as possible and also ask the lender for any discounts.
When I refinanced at the end of last year I got a real shady vibe from Quicken Loans. Very high pressure sales tactics and getting anything in writing from them was like pulling teeth.
I've seen lower. I work in the MBS market for a mortgage company. We're seeing low 3's on 15 year terms, and high 3's on 30 year terms with FHA loans typically having lower rates than conventional loans. ARMS are in the high 2's, low 3's. If you're in need of a lender, I know plenty of folks at the company I work for who provide excellent service and can close very quickly.
By the way, I'd advise that you not focus too much on the rate. A difference of like 0.250% in rate amounts to something along the lines of $15.00 per month on the average loan amount (varies based on loan amount). If you're tight on cash, it would be best to focus on low fees or rolling closing costs into the loan amount. If you have cash to do the mortgage, it makes more sense to focus on the rate. Depending on what you're willing to spend, you can buy the rate down (which means you'll compensate the lender for taking a loss on your loan).
I have about 3 years in on a 30 year loan, at 5.35%. Should I refinance? How much do penalties typically run?
Penalties? It may make sense for you to refinance depending on how much you owe, how much the home appraises for, your goals moving foward, and so on. Strictly on the basis of rate, you'd save a good bit every month depending on how much you still owe, being that rates are pretty low right now.
Heck ya you should refinance. Without even knowing details of your home you would probably save about $150-200 bucks per month on your mortgage. Your penalty will be the monthly savings, getting back escrow money and skipping a mortgage payment.
Are you guys giving out interest rates or APR? APR is what you're actually paying and it's going to be higher than your interest rate.
We're looking to sell in the next year, maybe at the end of this year. Are rates expected to stay low?
