Sure.
Tell it to the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation.
I merely documented that mortgage rates dramatically spiked (as did other interest rates) right after the enactment of legislation that will add trillions upon trillions upon trillions to the federal debt, which was also previously documented.
Apparently the only “political shit” is your inability to handle the truth.
One reason for the late refinance would be finally getting enough equity to lower LTV to make the process worthwhile.
But yes, I agree cash out is likely heavy and not really a rate reduction refi.
Not sure I follow. Higher LTV means slightly higher rates, but a larger loan balance benefits from reduced rates the most. So why wait all this time and continue pay higher interest rates in hopes to lower the prevailing rate by 0.25% due to hitting 20% equity.
Soon you will be able to get a loan underwritten by Zillow. Zillow buys a mortgage lender and the stock tanks
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Crap. I hope this doesn’t end their mortgage marketplace.
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Has anyone ever heard of or used Rate Rabbit (.com)? They only operate in AZ, CA, ID, and MA. They started showing at the top of my Zillow search results. They are a direct lender and their website shows current rates. What’s interesting is that rate search results on their website include a “One Fee Guarantee” – for refinancing, they guarantee lender and third-party costs and bundling them all into a single fee. The only items not includes are prepaids (prepaid interest, property taxes, and insurance). Title & escrow fees are not guaranteed for purchase, only for refi. I wish more lenders did this, but most of them would go out of business if they made rate+fee comparisons so trivial.
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If all lenders did that it’d be great.
I haven’t heard of them, but that concept has been used by other lenders. CashCall is one that comes to mind - they will have a flat fee (I think it’s now $999, it used to be $0) where they will agree to eat all third party junk costs like the appraisal, title insurance, escrow, etc for that fee. I have found that this is almost always at the expense of missing out on a lower rate where you may have to pay the junk fees. If you’re someone who rate chases, this may not be a big deal, but if you’re looking to lock something really low (we’re at 2.75% now and likely aren’t going to see something much lower than that), it might not make sense.
I swear half the battle in finding the lowest possible rate is just being patient until you get lucky. One of the fly-by-nights or startup lenders will get really aggressive on pricing after a piece of rate-friendly news, and that’s the time when you just want to apply and lock in immediately.
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One way or another the borrower always pays for services, either up front or with a higher rate. You are right, CashCall is similar in that they take a flat fee and pay for everything. The difference is that the CashCall fee is fixed at $999, while RateRabbit fee fluctuates with the market and can be much lower for the near-current mortgage rate (I’ve seen it < $200).
I’m guessing that’s a 15-yr, because I’m pretty sure 30-yr never dropped that low. The 30-yr rates today were very near a long-time low.
What does everyone’s crystal ball say about mortgage rates? Will coronavirus and t-bills going down mean great mortgage rates?
Mortgage rates at an all-time low. 
Asking prices at an all-time high. 
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Best time to refinance! 
(well, best time is at the bottom, but my crystal ball isn’t that good).
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Indeed. I am seeing a full quarter point lower than what we refi’ed at last October from the guys we used (LenderFi). 2.5% on a 15 year conventional, no escrow, with a $250 credit. They are a correspondent for PennyMac. Have had no issues with them.
That said, I think rates have a little more room to go down. MBS is lagging behind the treasury yield due to refi risk. Give it a little time and you should see rates go down even lower (unless Coronavirus disappears overnight, or some unexpected good economic news comes to light).
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Im seeing about the same as 2016. For <75ltv 155k loan negative cost 30yr is 3.75%
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For a higher amount (~400K) I’ve seen 30yr hit 3.25% this month (negative cost).
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$155k <75ltv 30yr negative cost (~$1k profit over all costs) loan w/ same lender down to 3.625%.
Real question is should I wait for 3.5?
Going from 3.75 to 3.625 is ~$180 less interest the first year, ~$600-$1k profit at close, and about a $3k free cash-out loan (new escrow funding – low since its only March).
I should probably refi now and again in 6 months at 3.5.
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You may want to check into this…
Click mortgages and then promo refinance.
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I have my auto loan with them, but those mortgage rates don’t look great and have some red flags.
- I could not find an actual quote calculator for their mortgage rates (plug in loan amount, LTV, credit score, and breaks down the rates/fees available). And it doesn’t specify what origination charges there are for those rates. If you find one on their site, a link would be helpful.
- Their example closing cost calculator prefills a default with a VERY HIGH origination charge (~1.5% origination fees and additionally points on top of that). Not a good sign.
I think to compare various rates it’s important to equalize the quotes to compare apples to apples.
There are several terms in a scale of varying costs for mortgages. (If someone has a correction/improvement in terminology, please let me know).
In order of “most initial cost” to “least initial cost”, we have:
- Standard rate advertisement with no further description. May need to pay point(s) to receive the posted rate. Additionally, the lender may have origination fees, application fees, attorney fees. Additionally the customer must pay third party fees such as title insurance, appraisal, and escrow services. Just a rate without even indicating the assumptions (LTV, loan amount, fees) is almost completely useless. The RBFCU rates page seems to fall into this category.
- No Points. This means you’re not paying points to get the shown rate. But the lender may still have origination fees (could be a fixed fee, from the $100s, to a couple $1000, or it could be a percentage of the loan). Plus there’s the third party fees.
- No Lender Cost or Zero Lender Cost. This means there’s no lender fees whatsoever or they’re directly offset with an appropriate negative points charge. But there’s still third party fees.
- No Cost. This means the rate includes a credit that offsets 100% of third party fees and any lender fees. The customer of course is still responsible for initial escrow funding – but that’s not really a charge associated with the mortgage but merely prepayment of future obligations.
- Negative Cost. This means the rate from the lender includes a credit that more than offsets 100% of all third party fees and any lender fees. Generally, any overage must be applied to the initial escrow funding of the new mortgage (Lender requirements and/or Fannie Mae requirements and/or state laws limit the amount of cash that can be received out of closing without categorizing the loan as a “cash-out” mortgage). But since money is fungible, it’s still directly money in one’s pocket out of close because you receive a check from any prior escrow account balance shortly after closing.
You CAN adjust the quotes to be equivalent from each of the above types. However, it is NOT a given that a lender will support lower costs options. What I mean is if a lender offers a Negative Cost loan, you can assume you can optionally pay points and/or third party fees for a lower rate. But just because a lender offers No Points does NOT mean they will also have a No Cost or Negative Cost option available in exchange for a higher rate.
How to directly compare different loan terms:
The most easy way is to convert any fixed fees into points. A “point” is 1% of the loan balance. This means a No Lender Cost loan with a 1 point charge is equivalent to a No Points loan with 1% in origination charges. A No Cost loan can be directly converted to corresponding negative points, assuming you understand what the closing costs actually will be. A Negative Cost loan can similarly be converted to a corresponding amount of negative points. If you’re trying to compare lenders that don’t offer the same products (like negative cost), then select lower rates at the Lower Cost lenders to achieve a rate at nearly the same number of points as available at the other lender(s). With the total “points” charges being equal between all the lenders’ quotes, you now can see which one has the lowest rate with everything else being equal.
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