Refinancing a Home
If you already have a mortgage, it may make sense for you to refinance. You can take advantage of better rates and terms and potentially save thousands over the life of your loan.
What is Refinancing?
When you refinance your mortgage, you're paying off your old loan with a new loan. You can save money by getting a lower interest rate, changing to different terms (i.e., switch from a 15-year to a 30-year term), or taking cash out of your home equity.
Benefits of Refinancing
There are several good reasons you should refinance, and you should consider more than just the interest rate:
- Reduce your monthly mortgage payments
- Take out cash at closing—consolidate your debt
- Switch to a fixed rate from an adjustable rate mortgage (long-term savings)
- Say goodbye to Mortgage Insurance
Fixed Rate Mortgages
With fixed rate mortgage (FRM) loan the interest rate and your mortgage monthly payments remain fixed for the period of the loan. Fixed-rate mortgages are available for 40, 30, 25, 20, 15 years and 10 years. Generally, the shorter the term of a loan, the lower the interest rate you could get.
The most popular mortgage terms are 30 and 15 years. With the traditional 30-year fixed rate mortgage your monthly payments are lower than they would be on a shorter term loan. But if you can afford higher monthly payments a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage allows you to repay your loan twice as faster and save more than half the total interest costs of a 30-year loan.
Fixed-period ARMs
With fixed-period ARMs homeowners can enjoy from three to ten years of fixed payments before the initial interest rate change. At the end of the fixed period, the interest rate will adjust annually. Fixed-period ARMs -- 30/3/1, 30/5/1, 30/7/1 and 30/10/1 -- are generally tied to the one-year Treasury securities index. ARMs with an initial fixed period beside of lifetime and adjustment caps usually have also first adjustment cap. It limits the interest rate you will pay the first time your rate is adjusted. First adjustment caps vary with type of loan program.
The advantage of these loans is that the interest rate is lower than for a 30-year fixed (the lender is not locked in for as long so their risk is lower and they can charge less) but you still get the advantage of a fixed rate for a period of time.