cardude
Full time employment: Posting here.
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2006
- Messages
- 599
I am thinking about doing a refi on my current mortgage (480K) to lock in a 30 year rate, but I’m a refi neophyte and need some advice from the refi masters.
My current rate is 5.065, but it is only locked for 7 years. I was thinking I would just pay if off in 7 years, or possibly just sell and move when the kids graduate from high school and head off to college, but I’m a little worried that if the recession stretches out longer than I had anticipated I may not want to burn up all that liquidity, or may not be able to sell.
My current bank does not do 30 year mortgages, and the only reason I used them last time is because I have a friend at the bank and it was easy—she knew my situation and was not worried. My situation is I’m recently retired, and have interest and rental income coming in to the tune of about 60K net. My wife works, and makes about 41K gross as a librarian at a public school. We both have good credit (780 and 730 at the time of last loan) and no other debt.
What should my closing costs be? What kind of a rate should I expect? Where should I go to refi? Do I say I'm retired or self employed with rental income? I don't really want to have to give tax returns for last two years because they have my old business on them and they are very confusing (and no longer accurate).
I’ve piddled around on various websites, but when it comes time for them to pull my credit I always stop because I don’t want a bunch of enquires on my bureau. Plus, the fees seem a little high—Penfed for instance estimated a $5800 total in closing costs including a 1% origination fee I think. Is there any way to get around some of those fees, especially that 1%?
I don't mind putting some more into the home to get the loan down to the 417K connforming level to get a better rate and to not have to escrow taxes and insurance (don't do that now).
Has anyone ever used a loan broker? How do they get paid?
My current rate is 5.065, but it is only locked for 7 years. I was thinking I would just pay if off in 7 years, or possibly just sell and move when the kids graduate from high school and head off to college, but I’m a little worried that if the recession stretches out longer than I had anticipated I may not want to burn up all that liquidity, or may not be able to sell.
My current bank does not do 30 year mortgages, and the only reason I used them last time is because I have a friend at the bank and it was easy—she knew my situation and was not worried. My situation is I’m recently retired, and have interest and rental income coming in to the tune of about 60K net. My wife works, and makes about 41K gross as a librarian at a public school. We both have good credit (780 and 730 at the time of last loan) and no other debt.
What should my closing costs be? What kind of a rate should I expect? Where should I go to refi? Do I say I'm retired or self employed with rental income? I don't really want to have to give tax returns for last two years because they have my old business on them and they are very confusing (and no longer accurate).
I’ve piddled around on various websites, but when it comes time for them to pull my credit I always stop because I don’t want a bunch of enquires on my bureau. Plus, the fees seem a little high—Penfed for instance estimated a $5800 total in closing costs including a 1% origination fee I think. Is there any way to get around some of those fees, especially that 1%?
I don't mind putting some more into the home to get the loan down to the 417K connforming level to get a better rate and to not have to escrow taxes and insurance (don't do that now).
Has anyone ever used a loan broker? How do they get paid?
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