Any advice for getting a bank to streamline a refinance?
By
I think “streamline” is the right word. We bought our house 5 months ago and have 6.25%. Our mortgage broker called an hour ago and said she can refinance us to 4.875% but closing costs equal about $3500. I called the bank that holds our mortgage to see if they can just lower our rate. I had to leave a message because they’ve had over 60K calls today so I’m waiting for them to call me back.
We aren’t in a hardship situation so I’m afraid that might actually work against them wanting to work with us. We just want a lower rate but would rather not pay a lot of closing costs. We would make up the closing costs in savings in about 26 months (probably less since our property taxes are also going down for next year). We put down 20% and would like to avoid having to take on PMI by rolling closing costs into our new loan.
Anyhow, I’m very interested in your thoughts/advice for streamlining.
Acemill: You are mistaken. Rates are that low. Wells Fargo has multiple options in the below-5% range today listed on their site. And our broker is not offering a buy-down mortgage. And we also have no prepayment penalty.
To the third answerer: We put 20% down and have not made much of a dent in it over the 5 payments we’ve already made. If we roll closing costs in we will have to add PMI at a cost of $80/month until we again reach 20% equity. The only way I can see around that is if our house appraises for more than it did 5 months ago, and I think we all know that’s not going to happen.
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
4 Comments
July 3rd, 2009 at 12:14 pm
go with your broker as he can lock today
July 4th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
You won’t get the lender to lower the rate by simply asking. It is going to take a refinance on your part in order to accomplish this. As well, you might investigate whether part of that ‘closing cost’ is a buydown of interest rates being done by your loan broker. Rates have not yet dipped below the low 5% range nationally. It would be very strange that she can come up with a rate lower than that.
As well, check your CURRENT mortgage to see if there is a prepayment penalty involved for closing out the mortgage after only five months. Such prepayment penalties became very commonplace in 2008. Such a penalty could amount to THOUSANDS of dollars.
Do your homework before you jump.
July 5th, 2009 at 9:39 am
You could just wrap the costs into the mortgage and forget all this checking things out. In the long run, it won’t amount to that much of an increase especially after reducing your rate by that much. You could also negotiate those costs. Most loan officers are real hungry today.
July 8th, 2009 at 10:17 am
If you didn’t jump when you had the chance you just missed it. I was about to lock with a lender at 4.5% on an FHA 30 year fixed and right in the middle the lender repriced and I missed it!
Let me ask you a question.
If your broker had not called and told you what was going on, how would you know to call and ask your current lender?