Getting a refinance has taken us about 2 months so far. I don't know if it's normal or we are just a little slow. We read everything, compare everything and ask a ton of questions. Currently Bank of America won't refinance us since we are not behind on our mortgage.... so we found someone else.
They are all brokers, trying to get a loan locally made us laugh a little bit. Sure, we would love your business, you would be a great customer but we can't compete with the rates you are getting online. Understandably, can you even get close.... nope. Chase bank can't even get close but they will buy the loan once we sign. I just wanted a local bank or credit union to refinance with, so they can service the loan locally.
Joke was on me.
We have a great rate currently but with everything being so low it made financial sense to refinance. It will save us almost $70,000 over the life of the loan, more if we keep making our current payment instead of the lower one.
Today the appraisal company is stopping in to check everything out. Online our property goes from $215k to $245k but finding comparable houses is extremely hard. One and a half stories, 3 bedroom, one and a half bath (how does a full bathroom with a bear claw tub not equal a full bathroom... no shower... ridiculous). We have one of the largest lot sizes and it's in one of the most desirable and appreciating areas of Colorado Springs. The 2 houses down just sold and moved last month, $275k and they are lacking the 1/2 story and an entire bedroom with about equal square footage.
I don't know how they figure all this stuff out, I always feel like we got robbed. If they give us a stupid figure that will require us to pay out money we will just walk away. I know we can sell our house for $245k+ without any effort. Our home was originally a barn, built in 1888 by one of the founders of Colorado Springs. It was once a duplex (lord knows how that was possible with the layout) and the basement was dug by hand and the entire place has a lot of character.
Speaking of games, the in-laws are showing their house today to an agent who wants to buy it for herself. I told them if they sell they need to get enough money to pay for a moving company, I'm not helping them move even up the street somewhere. Should have purchased a smaller house originally if it's too much work. We pay to have a maid there once a week... I don't even have a maid, what the heck. If they sell than can make about $100k in profit but that's a lot of pain in the ass-ness for me to deal with right now.
Max,
ReplyDeleteRefinancing is indeed a pain in the tail.
My daughter bought a house this year and because she is a recent college graduate and has no credit other than a student loan that she has paid for a year, she could not get as low a rate as advertised. Then, she had trouble because the house she was buying had two and a half acres and that made it a "non-conforming loan". She finally financed it so that she could close at 6%, with a promise that in one year, they would refinance it. Instead of refinancing, she is paying an additional hundred dollars toward principle with each payment every month. Her thirty year loan will end in 15 years, saving HUGE amounts of interest. We did the same thing, and our farm mortgage is now paid off.
It depends on the numbers, but for some, keeping the mortgage they have a pre-paying additional funds each month allows them to save just as much as if they had paid to refinance.
Best wishes.
Thanks for the information! We looked at a lot of things, but the rates are just too low to pass on. When we first got this house we had to get a cosigner, and had an ARM and refinanced as quickly as possible.
DeleteOops, $15000 pre payment penalty but we decided to eat it and haven't looked back since. Originally I think it was 8.5%, now we are getting under 4%, we hope.
Lucky me, I bought out the ex when we divorced and the house has lost $300k since! BofA said there's a new program for 2012(government sponsered, of course) that will refinance as long as you are less than 20% underwater. I was able to refinance with BofA because they were the original mortgage company on the loan. If they weren't I would still be looking for someone to refinance my house. I'm such a bad credit risk...never been late, always pay a little extra. Don't have any other debt besides the mortgage. I even paid my student loans back on time! Who would want anyone like that? The refi ended up saving me $500 a month. I'm still making the same payment which means I'll cut the mortgage time down by many years. Good luck and keep on them. I had to email and phone the person I was working with every few days but we were able to close in about 3 months.
ReplyDeleteJust waiting to hear back on the appraised amount and we are set. I'm not concerned, the appraiser really liked the house and yard and garden and didn't spend too much time in the basement (everything is covered but always concerned about people seeing preps). He wrote down 250k when we told him the house should easily be worth that, so I'm assuming it will hit around there.
DeleteWe've never lost value, but not having a bathroom upstairs hurts us a lot, it's not considered 2 story that way, just 1.5
What a crock. Can't walk down the stairs huh.