Refinance

[ralphmelton]

So, I refinanced the first mortgage on our house on Wednesday afternoon.

Our rate came down 2.125%, which ends up saving us hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of the mortgage.

We still have the 15-year second mortgage, but I called them up and asked if they would lower the rate, and they reduced it from 9% to 6.29% without any fuss. Very nice of them.

According to the mortgage application, we didn't take any equity out of the house with the refinance--but although we paid the loan costs and escrow setup out of the loan, we get the old escrow account back into our pocket. Plus, we don't have to make a payment until the beginning of August. With all these factors together, we end up with several thousand dollars more in liquid funds--and that's a great relief to me. I am willing to pay a bit for liquidity.

Refinancing seems like a very "adult" thing to do, with a connotation of "sensible" and "settled" and even perhaps "stodgy".

Comments

[eub.livejournal.com]

Good work on saving kilobucks -- figure you can always blow a teeny fraction on bungee-jumping to take away the stodge.

[magentamom.livejournal.com]

Yay saving money! Yay more liquid funds! Glad to hear it helped out with things.

See, I feel sensible, settled and perhaps even stodgy just because we *bought* a house and I'm painting the rooms. Of course, the rugrat probably contributes to that in my case.

[cellio]

Congrats!

[echoweaver.livejournal.com]

When we bought our home last year, we got a 30-year fixed at what we thought was an obscenely low rate. So of course, rates have dropped at least a point in the year since we bought it -- it dropped half a point by the time we closed. Now we're pondering refinancing already.

It's sort of sensible and stodgy, but it's also proactive -- a lot of sensible adults don't want to go through the expense and hassle. I figure, once you've actually bough a house, you're halfway to sensible anyway :).