Should i refinance on my mortgage? (loan officer, fixed rate, interest, credit)

[JL]

I am paying 6.125% on a 30 yr mortgage for a house bought in 2004 for $185k with 45k down payment. My credit is stellar. With interest rates very low now, i am seriously thinking about it. What kind of calculations should i use? formulas? Thanks.

[Bette]

If your goal is to pay off your loan, pay 1 point today to get 4.50 on a 25 year loan. If the payments work for you, you can always go with a 15 year fixed also.

[stock66]

Try this
Refinance Calculator - Should I Refiance My Mortgage
It should give you an idea where you stand based on how long you plan to stay.

[VictorBurek]

Just take the amount of closing costs and divide by the monthly savings. This only works when comparing 2 similar term loans. To get the best rates, you will have to pay closing costs and a point, which should get you a 30 year at around 4.875 to 5%. Since your home is in Texas, you should have total costs of around $4000 to $4500. At the lower rate you should see about $120 per month savings, so $4500 divided by $120 which is going to give you a break even point of 37 months. As long as you are planning on keeping this home for a longer period then 37 months, you should refinance.

In my opinion, you should refinance, the benefits outweigh the costs.

[evilnewbie]

This is HIGHLY dependent on the what the refinancing deal is... you need to give more information... what is the bank offering? What interest rate? What is the closing costs? Hard to say that anything is worth refinancing if you don't have these details... based on the information you gave so far... you paid a little over 33k in interests already with probably only 130k remaining balance (and 133k in additional interest payments if you kept the loan).... now lets say you refinance to 5.27% (bankrate's rate today for 30 year term) you will pay only 129k in interests costs (over the loan term) BUT you will also have a lower monthy mortgage HOWEVER if they add on closing costs (and sometimes points) that can kill the deal (If points and closing costs add up to more than 4k then you didn't really "do" anything (you pay the same amount of interest) except you did lower your monthly payment by a little over $100 a month - but maybe thats all you wanted)... Lets say you got plenty of money decide to do a 15 year term instead at 5.23% (again bankrate's rates) that means you would pay 57k in interests rates alone (a GREAT deal, HOWEVER you will pay a HIGHER monthly mortgage rate as well - about $150 to $200 more a month)... so there you go, it depends on what rate you are getting, loan terms, and closing costs/points... just because these are bankrate's rates, it doesn't mean you are going to get these rates.... you might do better, but most people do worse... unless you try to refinance at a Credit Union (they often have better terms and rates)...

[JL]

Countrywide has been sending me info on refinancing, but no actual rates yet. Every month they want to remind me that i can refinance. I will have to go in to see them first. Thanks for the info!!

[evilnewbie]

You said Countrywide... looking on their website the best offer they can give you (today) is 5.348% on a 30-year fixed rate (and they charge you 2 discount points)... crunching the numbers means that you pay $2600 (don't know about any closing costs because they don't mention it - perhaps that's all they charge)... You will pay a little over 131k + 2.6k if you refinance with them (assuming no other discount in the rate)... You already are going to pay 133k with your current loan... what does this mean? It means you pay the same or a little bit more on your interest payments but you will also pay $125 less each month (and will also be paying four years longer)... you didn't really save any money (and might of spent a little bit more) and you have 4 years MORE to pay... the only advantage was that you are paying $125 less each month (even though you are paying the same or more in total interest costs)... If you really want to refinance, I suggest looking at Credit Unions.. they have better rates...

[gfavor]

we just brought our hom in january 2009 at 6% rate our loan officers called to see if we wanted to refinance at 4.75 and they would rooll the 4650cc into the loan. This would be a 125.00 month savings for us. Our payment now is 1352.00 and would drop to 1225.0 shuld we do this, we have only been in our house 5 month is there any other options?

[Katlakat]

My friends at the bank I worked at just refinanced to drop a whole point, (we're in NH) Refinancing is the hottest thing going around the bank this month.

Texas Mortgage Rates 04/28/2009
Loan Type Today +/-
30 yr fixed 4.63%
15 yr fixed 4.38%
5/1 ARM 4.81%