Refinancing is always a popular move with homeowners. You can take out cash, get a lower monthly payment, consolidate debt, and accomplish a number of things with a refinance. While the concept of refinancing is pretty simple, many people are confused by it. When is the best time to refinance? How do you know when is the right moment to get in? Here are a few things that you should consider when thinking about refinancing.
The first thing that you should look at is your motivation for refinancing. If you want to lower your interest rate and save money on your monthly payment, you have to do things carefully. Shopping around can help you find the best deal and it is essential to get the lowest rate you can get. When you shop around, you ll usually find several lenders out there that want your business. They will throw all kinds of offers out to try and bring customers in. Look through them carefully and try to find the best one for you.
In order to properly assess whether or not it is a good time for you to refinance, you will need to compare the new potential loan to your current one. Let s say that you have a mortgage at a 7 interest rate. You ve been paying on it for a number of years and you want to lower your rate and payment. If the current rate that you can get is 4 , it would most likely be in your best interest to refinance. However, what if the new interest rate is 6.25 ?
If the interest rate is not that much lower, you have to consider how much you will be spending on closing costs. Most of the time, closing costs will run you a few thousand dollars. Therefore, you have to look at how much the interest is costing you and add the closing costs into the equation as well. If you are only saving a small percentage on your interest rate and have large closing costs, it might not be in your best interest to switch.
If you are looking to only get cash out, then the interest rate might not be as big of a factor for you. If you can get the same interest rate or less, you are still going to be in pretty good shape. Your payment could be the same or less than what you are used to and you will still be able to get the cash out that you want.
Overall, there is no definitive answer as to when you should refinance. You have to look at your individual situation and make the best decision for you. Look at where you are in your mortgage and where you want to be after you refinance. If you can get to where you need to be, go ahead and do the deal. If not, then you should think twice about doing it. Just make sure that you don t pay too much to accomplish what you need to do.