Refinancing Your Home.....

We're serial refinancers. We've been refinancing every year for the past 6 years. A few disclaimers first: we have near perfect credit scores. We have a huge equity in our house.
Our requirements to consider a refinance are: no cost, no fees. no points, no closing costs, no processing fees. not even the home appraisal fees!
We bought our house 12 years ago. The first time we refinanced, we still had our loan papers when we refinanced, so that was a good reference point. We use our original papers to see what forms we have to fill out and just to review the jargon on the loan papers.
All I ever have to do is provide my pay stub and proof of employment and just sign about 30 pages of documents. And schedule a time when the bank's appraiser can come to the house. We saved so much money, we can prepay and turn the 30-yr mortgage into a 20-yr by prepaying anytime. It's more flexible than trying to get a 15-yr mortgage.

I did a refi about a year ago. It was a nightmare - I wanted to hang myself.

Not only do you need to look at your credit score, but you also need to consider your income to debt ratio. I had two part time jobs at the time. The company I went through was only counting one of my incomes so they made me pay off the only credit card we had (that was the only debt we had). I couldn't understand why we had to do that, but I did it anyway. That in itself was a nightmare. They wanted all kinds of bank statements to show that I had the money I used to pay off the card, then they needed documentation of the step by step process of transferring the money from my savings to my checking, then the check from my checking account to the creditor and then a new statement from the creditor that reflected the pay off. Of course, they didn't tell me this until just few weeks prior to closing so getting all of the documentation was tricky. They were soooo picky about what documentation they would accept. I found myself at the bank pretty much daily - sometimes more than once! My bank even called them because it was so ridiculous! And to find out at the very end that the reason I had to do this was because they erroneously neglected to consider my second income sent me over the edge. Had they looked the documentation submitted to verify income, they would have seen that I had two different employers and my income was twice what they thought it was, I would not have had to pay off that credit card.

Also, the closing costs. You do need to have this money and can prove that you've had the money for a couple of months. So, if you're planning to borrow money to pay closing costs, you have to have a note from the lender saying it's a gift and you don't have to pay it back, and then 3 months of THEIR bank statements to show that they had the money to lend.

We were going to pay closing costs out of cash that hubby and I had earned and squirreled way doing side jobs. WRONG! They won't take cash; you have to prove the source of the funds you're using to pay the closing costs. So, we had to pretend to borrow from my brother-in-law. And then we had to go through the process described in the preceding paragraph.

I guess if you have a great credit score, keep all your money in the bank so it can be traced, don't have much debt (or at least a good income to debt ratio), and can pay closing costs with money already in the bank, you'll be fine.

I wish you the best of luck. I've told my hubby that unless interest rates are lowered to zero, I will NEVER do that again!

What I'm about to tell you will vary from place to place and a lot of factors can effect your outcome, that being said.
You may have to come up with closing costs, survey fee, title work, inspection fee, all this if it has been some time since the original mortgage.
If you are doing this to cash out some equity, there may be a time period you have to stay in the house after the refi, for instance you can't sell the house in two years if you take cash out.
If you're doing this to lower payments, by how much? If the closing cost run $4-6K and you are only lowing the payment $100, is that worth it to you?
Several things to consider, contact a mortgage co. to start with. Good luck.

The advice given to me by my financial advisor is to refinance only if the interest rate you will be offered will be at least 2 - 3 points lower than your current mortgage interest.

Refinancing a mortgage is like starting all over again with your mortgage. If you have been living in your house for 5 years and had a 30 year mortgage, you would have 25 years to pay. When you refinance if you are getting another 30 year mortgage, you are back to year 1.

There may be fees involved with refinancing.

You will want to approach more than one mortgage company to see who can give you the best deal. You will want them to pull your credit within one week of each other. Doing this will only count as 1 instance of checking into your credit which is better than several hits from different companies.

It's hard to answer your questions, because banks vary so much and people's situations vary.

We bought our house 4 1/2 years ago. Interest rates have dropped SIGNIFICANTLY since then, and there are many things in our life that we have finally gotten in order. The time is right.

I called a local bank and made an appointment. I asked what to bring, and she told me: Our last 2 pay stubs, last 2 years of W2's and tax returns, last 2 bank statements.

Because the rates have dropped, we will be going from a 30 year mortgage to a 15 year mortgage and paying slightly less each month. We will be paying closing cost, but we have only been in the house 4 1/2 years. We had 20% down, so we don't really have that much equity.

Just make a phone call, make an appointment, ask lots of questions. You really won't know until you show them all your info and hear what they off.

Our situation is much like Ann. We refinance when numbers are right . We pay 0 fees for anything. We also have majority of equity and refuse to pay any fee due to our near perfect credit, no debt other than low mortgage.

People don't understand. You can refi at no cost if your credit is superior and you have majority of equity in your house.

We have a house payment of $1000 which is absurd for my area. You cant get an ok apartment in this area less than $1500 a month. We live on 1/2 acre with 4000+ SQ FT valued at a low 6 figure number.

We don't do escrow. Gee we have enough discipline to save for the yearly taxes ( $12,000) and insurance ($2500). We prefer to make our interest instead of giving the mortgage company a free loan.

Investigate every detail to get the best deal for you. Don't be afraid to walk out if the lender changes anything. It's your $$ , your credit at risk

PS; if you choos to refinance... Also pay down the loan for a better deal.