by Brian Armstrong
Refinancing your mortgage can be one of the best financial decisions you make depending on how frequently you do this, the purpose of your refinance and the refinance product you decide to go with. You’ll need to put your trust in another individual (usually your loan officer that works with a brokerage or a loan specialist with a bank) that will help you with the process of getting refinanced. Because you’ll need to trust someone that will act in your best interest, the following are a few tips so that you’ll be a little educated on the basic refinance process and a few “gotchas” about the mortgage industry.
The first tip that I have for you is to do your due diligence by shopping around. Don’t automatically go sign up with the first office you visit unless you’ve at least talked with a couple of other loan officers and know that the first one you visit is the best. Several mortgage companies now have a lot of valuable information on the internet and finding their websites can be relatively easy to do. This will help you do some priliminary research before you decide to go with one company over another. Getting several quotes will at least give you a better idea of what a good rate is. Be cautious of the traditional bait and switch where a company will get you in the door with a low rate only to have a lot of additional fees and “points”. Make sure you’re comparing apples to apples and get the entire cost, not just the APR.
The second tip is make sure that you are not subject to an early termination fee with your existing mortgage. This penalty may be more expensive that it’s worth to refinance. This is a great tip for getting a new mortgage as well to find out when you can next refinance. It isn’t that you’re going to refinance no matter what in that time, but knowing when you will be out from under any possible “prepay” penalty is a good information to know. If you refinance with a new lender, you’ll most likely have a 120 day period before you can refinance again. This means that no matter the rates, you’ll probably be able to refinance no more than 3 times per year. Most people don’t do this and this type of strategy has it’s place, but typically not with the traditional homeowner.
This third tip may be the one that saves you the most money in the long run. The base rate that a lender charges is called the par rate. The rate that you pay is based on this rate. If you are paying upfront costs including loan origination fees and other fees such as appraisals, etc, then you should be able to get very close to this par rate. If your lender is doing a no-cost refi, this usually means he or she is making money of selling the loan at a higher rate which will typically cost you much more in the long run. If you are in a home where you plan to live for the remainder of the time left on the loan, such as a 15 year or 30 year mortgage, your most cost effective solution is to get that rate as low as possible which may also include “buying down” the rate. Keep in mind that this strategy works the best if you are refinancing because the rate is very low. If you’re refinancing becaue of a cash out or some other reason and the rate is only so-so, you may decide to not focus as much on the rate because you’ll most likely refinance again in the future.
Also, if you are in only a temporary situation or know that you will only be in your home for a shorter amount of time, instead of buying down the rate, your best option may be to lower your monthly costs as much as possible instead of coming up with more cash at closing. It may be that if the cost to buy down the rate is $2,000 which may save you $20,000 over the 30 years you’ll have this mortgage, of course it’s worth it. But you may also need to decide on the value of that same $2,000 if invested in another medium. For instance, how much would that same $2,000 be worth if invested in something like t-bonds or another sort of mutual fund, etc. Often, the interest rate on a mortgage is low enough that buying down the rate to get slightly lower may not be worth it. Run the numbers with a competent loan officer and you’ll have a good idea of what may best help you.
The fourth tip is to reserve the actual running of the credit for when you’re ready to get approved. If you’re doing some shopping with multiple lenders, don’t provide your social security number or allow a credit check until you’re ready to sign with only one loan officer / brokerage or lender. The reason for this is that each inquiry against your credit will reduce your score slightly. There are some exceptions built into the credit bureaus that allow for multiple inquiries not counting against you that occur within a certain period of time (such as in the case of car shopping or even home shopping). However, if you know your credit score, you can usually get a loan officer to help you with some pretty accurate estimates based on the score. If you don’t know your score, you are entitled to a free credit report from each of the credit agencies at least one time per year. If you stagger this throughout the year, you can get a copy of your credit report every 4 months. Once from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. This will help you keep tabs on your credit as well as know your score.
The fifth tip I have for you is based on knowing about and understanding the yield spread premium or YSP for short. The YSP is a payout the lenders make to the brokerages for selling the loan at a rate above the “par” rate. The lenders have a rate sheet that they provide to loan officers and mortgage brokers. This rate sheet has a par rate which is the rate at which the bank doesn’t require a buy down nor does it pay out anything to the loan officers at this par rate. The thing that is tricky about this YSP is that it doesn’t show up on any of the loan documents. What this means is that if you are not a savvy borrower and don’t know about this rate, the loan officer may tell you that the no-cost refinance is higher because they can receive compensation from the lender. What they don’t tell you is how much they are receiving which is also fine. The problem comes when they charge more than would be considered a fair payout for work done within the industry. Keep in mind that most of the time, your loan officer is doing a lot of work together with a loan processor and they truly do earn their money, but it should be a reasonable payment and not anything exorbitant.
In conclusion, knowing about these few simple tips may save you thousands of dollars both on the overall cost of your home as it relates to the overall amount of interest you’ll pay or even to help you determine whether or not you should try to get a no-cost refinance and pay a higher rate or whether you should try to pay down the interest rate. The real key is to find a good loan officer you can trust. Use some of these tips to get a good feeling that who you are working with is reiiable and trustworthy. Failure to know about these easy tips could cost you thousands of dollars when you refinance.
About the Author:
Brian Armstrong specializes in assisting Salt Lake City residents in getting a mortgage. You can find Brian’s website online about
Salt Lake City mortgages full of great information on home loans. Brian’s Youtube channel also has some video content and other valuable resources about finding a
mortgage broker in Salt Lake City.
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