If you are among the nearly 87 million homeowners in the United States, at some point, you’ve probably thought about refinancing unless you’ve just moved into your new home. Refinancing does a lot of different things, and it all depends on why you are refinancing.
If you purchased your home back in 2007 or 2008, it might be time to take a different look at your home loan. You might consider pulling some money out for home improvement, sending a kid to college, changing your terms or lowering your monthly payment. Refinances are still very popular. Over 7 million or refinance loans were originated in 2016, up 2% from 2015, which recorded some of the highest refinance loans in the last ten years. Today, homeowners are trying to beat the clock before rates rise even further. If you’ve been on the fence about refinancing, I wouldn’t wait much longer.
Why would you refinance?
Because most homeowners are not underwater anymore, meaning they no longer owe more on the house than it is worth, you might have some equity in the house. If you have $10,000-$20,000, you might consider refinancing your loan, applying for a whole new loan and pulling that money out for home improvements or other major purchases. However, you will be starting all over. If you’ve been paying on your mortgage for ten years, you might be starting over with a 30-year loan, or you can adjust the terms and still pull out money lowering the length of time to pay back the loan. For instance: if you’ve been paying on loan for ten years, you decide to cash in on some equity but then rework the loan as a 15-year mortgage instead of a 30-year mortgage, you saved yourself five years.
Read more: 4 Biggest Refinance Questions
People refinance simply to pay off their loan faster. If you know that you’re going to stay in the home for the next 5 to 10 years, refinancing to lower terms might be ideal. You can pay off the loan a lot faster, gaining much more equity in a shorter time, and shorten the length of time before your house is completely paid off. This may or may not change your monthly mortgage payment depending on your current rate and the interest rate you could receive. Often, homeowners will combine the second mortgage with the first in a refinance and save money because of the combined loan.
If you have not yet walked into an interest rate lower than your current mortgage, you could be saving hundreds of dollars on your mortgage payment. If you can lower your interest rate by one point, you could be saving several hundreds of dollars each month.
There are two good candidates for refinancing; a homeowner who has a fixed rate loan with an interest rate about 4.5%, and a homeowner with an adjustable rate who wants to lock in a fixed rate before interest rates increase.
More: How to Know it’s Time to Refinance Your Loan
If you’re planning on staying in the home for at least 2 to 5 years, consider a refinance. You don’t need to cash in on your equity if you’re looking to build more equity and pay off the loan faster. There are a variety of reasons to refinance, some of which could help you presently and others in the future. Find out how much you could be saving either monthly the long run by calling me today.