*Field Required
Choosing between a 15-year and 30-year mortgage is one of the most important decisions you will make when buying a home. Your loan term affects your monthly payment, total interest paid, and how quickly you build equity.
Refinancing your mortgage can be a strategic way to improve your financial position as a homeowner. Whether your goal is to reduce your monthly payment, access home equity, or adjust your loan terms, understanding how a home refinance works is the first step.
This guide breaks down the most common types of home refinance options, including rate-and-term refinance and cash-out refinance, so you can make an informed decision based on your goals.
Overview
Refinancing replaces your current mortgage with a new loan to lower costs, change terms, or tap home equity. The two main options are rate-and-term (to improve rate, term, payment structure, or loan type) and cash-out (to convert equity into cash for uses such as renovations or debt consolidation).
When considering refinancing, compare the potential savings with the closing costs (often 1% to 5% of the loan amount), consider equity and credit requirements, and factor in how long you’ll keep the home. The best strategy aligns with your goals, timeline, and overall financial plan, ideally with guidance from a Loan Advisor.
High interest credit card debt can suck the life out of anyone. Paying off your credit card debt at today’s high interest rates can also take major sacrifice—but it doesn’t have to. Not if you’re a homeowner, anyway.
A debt consolidation refinance may let you kill two birds with one stone. It can allow you to achieve a lower interest rate on your debt while streamlining all your monthly payments into one. You’ll essentially consolidate debt obligations and roll them into your mortgage, but at a much lower interest rate. The result is a single payment at a lower interest rate: your monthly mortgage payment.
Down payments can be one of the most daunting parts of the homebuying process. We all know that buying a home costs money! Thankfully, you don’t necessarily have to drain your savings account to come up with the sum. There are other ways to secure a down payment, including gift funds, grants, and down payment assistance programs.
The real estate waiting game is no fun. But with today’s high interest rate, some would-be buyers think it’s prudent to play if they want to secure the best homeownership deal. The problem with that is you miss out on homeownership opportunities today, including less competition and falling prices in many markets.
Today’s low interest rates have spurred interest in something else: refinancing! There has never been a better time to refinance your mortgage if you’re looking to secure an insanely low rate.
Reverse Mortgages Explained
You may be hearing a lot about Reverse Mortgages in commercials on radio and television lately. Sometimes it’s hard to decipher what, exactly a reverse mortgage is – or whether it’s something for you to consider for yourself. There’s a lot of information out there, so we wanted to break it down in easy-to-understand bites to make your decision-making as easy as possible.
The last several years have been very good for property values for most areas of the United States. According to the National Association of Realtors market growth will likely flatten out a bit for 2019, but still continue to improve at a more moderate pace.
