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Extra money towards house loan or put in savings?


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We have four children and currently live in a three bedroom house. We have lived here for 8 years. At some point we plan on trying to sell this house and buy a four bedroom house. We want to start putting back some money for when this time comes. Would it be more wise to put the extra money towards our current house loan or to put the money in our savings account for when we buy the new house? Also, we would be eligible to refinance our house next October to lower the interest rate, but is this is a smart choice if we are looking at selling it withing a 2-4 years after that? Our current interest is 6.5 and we could reduce it to around 4.5 by refinancing.

 

Any thoughts or advise are appreciated.

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Save your money and refinance. If you can get the financing costs rolled into your loan, you won't actually end up paying for it when you sell your house, but that is a significant interest rate reduction. We refinance every time we can lower it by one percentage point.

 

Treat your house payment like rent, and save the extra or pay off credit so you can move debt-free.

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Hey! I live in Moore, too!! I have never seen anyone on these boards who lives so close to me!

 

I would save to have your emergency fund (6 months pay in the bank), and refinance. Once you have the emergency fund, I would start saving for a bigger down payment on your next house. If you plan to sell in the next few years, I would not worry about extra payments on the loan, unless you think the house will sell for less than what you owe, then I might try to pay it down and hold off moving for a little longer.

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We just refinanced at 3.85 for a 15yr mortgage. The fees were low and with a rebate it didn't cost us anything out-of-pocket. Our monthly payment is now $150 lower a month and we are paying it off in 20 rather than 28! So, we'll have quite a bit more equity when we sell in 10 years (or that's the current plan).

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Could you refi to a 15 year loan? Our refi rate is 3.37% with no closing costs (other than paying into our escrow account). We could have gotten a 3.25% rate but it would have cost us a couple of thousand in closing and the difference is so minimal in terms of interest paid.

 

Dawn

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