Refinance Your Home Loan With Confidence

There are lots of reasons why you may want to refinance your home. Perhaps you’re looking to pay your mortgage off sooner, lower your monthly payment, pay down debt or take cash out for a major purchase or renovation. Before deciding to refinance, it’s important to determine what you would like to accomplish. Remember, refinancing doesn’t get rid of your debt, instead it restructures it - often at a lower interest rate and at different loan terms from your original mortgage. And thanks to historically low interest rates, it’s never been a better time to explore your refinancing options.

Without diving into your personal financial situation and the specifics of your individual mortgage, it’s really hard for us to determine exactly how much you may be able to save by refinancing your mortgage. It’s also important to remember that your reasons for refinancing may not be to save money… it may be to pay off debt or take cash out for a major purchase or renovation.

In general, there are a couple of different ways that you can save money when you refinance your mortgage. The first is to refinance to a more favorable interest rate or term - this can help lower your monthly mortgage expense but may end up costing you more in interest payments over the life of your loan. You can also save by refinancing if you adjust to a shorter-term mortgage (ie. a 15-year mortgage). When you refinance to a shorter term you’ll generally be paying more on a monthly basis but can save thousands in interest payments over the life of your loan.

If you’d like a custom mortgage refinance analysis, please give us a call at 1-800-24-RATES.

Similar to when you purchased your home, the costs to refinance your mortgage include a loan origination fee, an appraisal fee, closing costs, title and attorney fees (depending on the state that you live in). Closing costs typically equal about 2-3% of your total loan amount.

When you work with the right mortgage company, like Mutual of Omaha Mortgage, it’s important to note that you may not have to incur any out of pocket expenses when you refinance your mortgage. There are still standard costs, but with the right lender, those costs can be financed and structured into your loan.

As part of your refinance evaluation process don’t forget to calculate your breakeven point.  This is the point at which the costs of refinancing your home have been covered by the savings in money from your monthly payment amount.

In general, the process to refinance your mortgage takes 30-45 days. Depending on your property, and how complex or simple your personal finances are, your time to refinance may be shorter or longer than the averages noted above.  Please keep in mind that while we work very diligently at Mutual of Omaha Mortgage to ensure the process is quick and easy, we have to depend on 3rd parties to perform some tasks during the refinance process (like appraisals and inspections) that can delay the process.

In general, when you’re refinancing your mortgage you will be asked to provide pay stubs, bank statements, and W-2’s. There may be additional documentation requests depending on your financial situation. Thanks to enhancements in our mortgage process, we’re now able to offer our clients a more automated way to be able to submit asset, income, and credit information to their mortgage banker at Mutual of Omaha Mortgage. With our automatic check process our clients often receive significantly less paperwork requests or repulling of information during the mortgage process. It can not only help to cut down on the frustration of trying to track down the required information but also help expedite your entire loan process.

A cash-out refinance replaces your existing mortgage loan with a loan for more than what you owe and allows you to cash out a portion of the equity that you’ve built within your home. When you do a cash out refinance, you will be getting a new home loan for an amount that’s more than your mortgage balance but less than or equal to the current value of your home. It’s important to note that you can’t pull out all of the equity that you have available in your home. Generally, the maximum amount of cash that you can take out is 80% of your home's value.

For illustration purposes, let's say your home is worth $200,000 and you owe $120,000 on your mortgage. That gives you $80,000 in home equity, or 40 percent of the home's value.

If you are doing a cash-out refinance you will need to retain 20 percent equity, so that gives you $40,000 available to borrow.

To borrow that amount, you would take out a new mortgage for $160,000 ($120,000 already owed plus $40,000). This would allow you to cash out/receive a $40,000 check minus any closing costs.