Who would you refinace a mortgage with?

[treestarfae]

Please help!

[Unicorn.]

My Credit Union, because they are amazing! I would never go w/ one of the big, evil, empires. That probably doesn't help you, but that is who I would use.

[plansrme]

Are you, or can you be, a member of USAA? I have refinanced through them 1 1/2 times (in the middle of #2), and it has gone swimmingly both times.

 

I started this current refinance with a local mortgage broker, and I eventually fired them because I felt like they were asking for too much information. We are planning to finish paying for our house in 5 years; we have, under any appraisal, at least 60% equity; we have stellar credit and zero debt other than the mortage; we both work and have a solid income. He wanted a letter from us explaining why AT&T had run a credit check on my husband. Ummm, because we added a phone to our plan??? You know, I am not the cause of the mortgage crisis in America, and I resented being treated like I was. He also lied to us to get us to commit earlier than was necessary.

 

I got off of the phone with Mortgage Broker #1 and on the phone with USAA. They matched the guy's excellent interest rate and beat his closing costs (I am getting negative points!) and are not even requiring an appraisal. Which is kind of too bad, because I'd already paid for one for Mortgage Broker #1. :glare: They also are waiving the fee they usually charge to waive insurance and tax escrow. It's only $350 or so, but all I did was e-mail our contact and say, "Hey, we've paid this once already, in our last refinance. We're existing customers, so you know we pay our taxes and insurance. How about waiving this?" And he did.

 

We love USAA. If there's any way you can get in (we are eligible because my husband's father is retired military), give them a shot.

 

Terri

[Chelle in MO]

We just finished a re-fi and chose Stifel Bank.

[Melissa in NC]

This is a personal friend of mine that I have used for four mortgages. He gets the job done.

 

Barry Friedman

23131 Three Notch Road # 200

California, MD 20619-2414

Phone:(301) 862-9100

800-222-0805

 

barry.friedman@pncmortgage.com

[Brilliant]

If you think you'll be in your house 5-10 years or less, go with ING. We refinanced with them in March. It was easy-peasy, and the rates and costs couldn't be beat. (until the rates went down this summer...oh, well!)

 

I'm having a hard time linking directly to their rates (currently 2.99% on a 5-year fixed) but you can find it at Ingdirect.com.

[Kim in Appalachia]

It was easy, but their costs were high. We do not owe much on our house so the credit union was the best way for us to go. My parents used Charles Schwab. Big places like that have lower costs but can have more hoops.

[Krista in LA]

Well we financed about a year ago with Chase as they held our old mortgage. I won't use them again. Some of the hoops they made us jump through included writing a letter to them explaining why *they* ran a credit report on us the same day we applied to refinance. :banghead: It only got worse from there and we had to really push them to get it closed before the interest rate lock expired. We have excellent credit, there was no reason for there to be any problem. When we closed, we asked the title company lady if some banks are easier to deal with and she said she likes one of our smaller, local banks, so you might want to ask around locally. FWIW, I've heard horrible things about Bank of America too.

[mom2abcd]

Can you get a Rural Development Loan? The Guaranteed Loan they offer is very easy and has great benefits. (No down payment, no PMI, no pre-payment penalty, etc.)

[Jennifer3141]

We are in the process of rescuing our landlord's house from foreclosure and I really appreciate all the help! I'm reasonably certain we're going to go with a local bank because there's no way in heck I'd give Chase or Bank of America a chance after all the stories about how they practice business are coming out. Scary!

[mamakori]

We are doing our refi with Quicken Loans. Rates were very low and they are able to do a 10 year mortgage, which is what we wanted. We just started the process, but it's been very painless so far. Bankrate.com is a great place to start your research. Like other posters said, most mortgage companies sell your loan before the first payment anyway.

[lovetobehome]

We are about to close on our refi with ING--unbeatable rates and costs are soooo low.

[Alyce]

If you're a veteran I assume you got a VA loan, if you didn't you might try them to see if they will finance one for you. If you do have a VA loan and want to finance then I would go with USAA. Since you are a veteran you can now be a member, in fact, you can be a member if you are a child of a veteran and you don't have to have retired from your service either. If you served 4 years you're eligible for USAA and all their resources, that is as long as it was an honorable discharge. When we bought this house, in 1985, we got a VA loan. At that time interest rates were 12%. A couple of years later they began dropping and went down to 6% and everyone said that was as low as they were going to go for a while. We contacted USAA for refinancing since, as you can see, it made a big change in our monthly payments. The refi went nice with no glitches. The company was so easy to work with. Our payments stayed at 6% for about 12 years and then they started dropping. 4% interest is great now but we only had 3 years more to go before paying off the house so we just chose to take our money and go ahead and pay it off. We do almost all our business with USAA and have never been disappointed.