Refinancing Your Home Mortgage Loan - Refinance Your Adjustable Rate Mortgage
Carrie Reeder
Adding Up Costs
Before you jump on a refinancing offer, consider the upfront costs. To refinance a $100,000 loan, you can expect loan fees to range from $1000 to $3000. That is not including points for lower rates.
In order to recoup these origination costs, you need to be planning to spend several years in your home. Also, if you only have a couple of years left on your mortgage, you may be better off with your original mortgage.
Benefits Of Refinancing
Locking in a low rate is the most common benefit to refinancing an ARM. By converting to a fixed rate mortgage, you are guaranteed a low interest without worrying about yearly interest rate fluxes.
You can also build up your equity sooner by converting to a biweekly mortgage or short term loan. With larger monthly payments, you can potentially save thousands on interest payments.
When Not To Refinance
With an ARM there is always some risk involved, but there are cases when keeping your ARM makes financial sense. For instance, unless interest rates will rise more than a couple of percentage points over the course of your loan, you will probably pay more in loan fees than you will save. You should also keep your ARM if current rates are only 1% or lower than your ARM's rate.
You may also want to keep your ARM if you are planning to move soon. With homeowners moving within seven years of buying a home, it doesn't make sense to refinance when you won't recoup the costs.
Picking A Lender
Just like with any mortgage, you want to be sure that you have researched several lenders before choosing one. Request quotes on both rates and fees. You will need to add up total costs to find the best financing package. You can also use the internet to find online mortgage lenders. Many times these lenders will offer lower interest rates or low closing costs to remain competitive.
About the author:
See my recommended Home Mortgage Refinance Lenders for the lowest rates online. Carrie Reeder is the owner of ABC Loan Guide, which offers help finding low rate home mortgage loans.
The latest information and news on Mortgages:
GMAC's mortgage arm will be tough to unload (Detroit Free Press)
ResCap, the mortgage lending subsidiary of GMAC, "has been a millstone around the company's neck" in the words of GMAC Chief Executive Michael Carpenter. But disposing of ResCap without crippling GMAC's automotive lending business or adding to GMAC's $17.2-billion debt to the U.S. Treasury Departmen...
More consumers pay credit card, but not mortgage (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
CHICAGO ? U.S. consumers are starting to look like a frugal, debt-fearing lot as they pay down billions of dollars in credit-card obligations. But an alarming trend is emerging: A small but growing number of people are skipping mortgage payments in favor of paying their credit card bills.
Will mortgage rates rise? Fed action only part of the picture (Everett Herald)
Question: We have been hearing that mortgage rates will go up after March 31st because the Federal Reserve will stop buying mortgage bonds. Is this true? How does that work?
More consumers pay credit card, but not mortgage (The Scranton Times-Tribune)
U.S. consumers are starting to look like a frugal, debt-fearing lot as they pay down billions of dollars in credit-card obligations. But an alarming trend is emerging: A small but growing number of people are skipping mortgage payments in favor of payin
Some tax issues to consider on mortgage write-downs (Washington Post)
With the Obama administration and private lenders actively considering mortgage principal-reduction programs to help financially distressed homeowners, the Internal Revenue Service has issued a new advisory to taxpayers who receive -- or seek to receive -- such assistance. The IRS gets involved in m...
Yahoo! News Search Results for refinance
Now best time to buy or refinance? (The Southern Illinoisan)
As the economy slowly begins to recover, changes are takingplace in the housing market that experts said indicate the besttime to buy a home or refinance an existing mortgage may benow.
Refinance may limit financial flexibility (Bankrate.com via Yahoo! Finance)
Reduced financial flexibility may be the price for a home refinance that lowers your mortgage rate.
Refinancing bonds to save Consolidated 5 $450,000 (The Times and Democrat)
The Orangeburg Consolidated School District 5 board unanimously passed a resolution to refinance general obligation bonds that will save the district about $450,000.
Pernod Ricard Plans to Issue Bonds to Refinance Absolut Buyout (Bloomberg)
March 10 (Bloomberg) -- Pernod Ricard SA , the world?s second-biggest liquor maker, is planning to sell six-year bonds to help refinance loans used to buy the Absolut vodka brand in March 2008.
REITs show rising prices but growing risks (Washington Post)
Analysts, bloggers, real estate dealmakers and managers of mutual funds are as puzzled as I am about the 90 percent rise in REIT indexes since March 2009. Commercial real estate lags the business cycle, so shares of real estate investment trusts normally do not rebound until after it's apparent the ...