Mortgage refi? Can you help?

[platamama]

Also remember that if you itemize, your mortgage interest is tax deductible (for the foreseeable future anyway), whereas the interest on your car loan is not. So if you are paying the same amount of interest on the car whether you pay it off in 4-1/2 years or over 15 years, then you might as well get the tax deductible interest (assuming you itemize, and are not subject to limits due to income) and end up paying less overall.

 

[Huff]

The costs you laid out may be accurate for your company or what you do, but I've refied my current mortgage with a local bank and never paid more than $250 in total closing costs.

There were no extra fees rolled into the mortgage balance, just amount I paid upfront.

So it is possible to not pay large amounts of $ in closing costs

You paid the costs of the loan some how. Origination fees, appraisal fees, title fees etc etc etc are all in there somewhere. The various companies involved besides your bank are getting money somehow and the only one paying them are the seller or the buyer not the bank. If they're not on paper then they're buried in the points or interest paid.

 

[ilovediznee]

We are in the process of refinancing thru the credit union that also has our cars. Completed all the paperwork and just waiting. Their rates were low, but the closing costs were very high - about $8000. I thought that was very high but also looked at others and they all look about that amount as well.

I contacted our current mortgage holder - US Bank, but they said all they could do was refinance our current loan and it would only save us $60 a month - not very worth it.

Hope to hear from the credit union soon.

 

[3boymthr]

You may think you are only paying closing costs on app and credit report but I guarantee you are paying more than that because NO state agency is going to re-register your deed or discharge your mortgage or issue a lien certificate without getting their money. I guarantee your town is NOT waiving that fee. Those fees are absolutely being paid somewhere by someone. Either you are paying the fees or the bank is fronting the costs and rolling it into a marginally higher interest rate. Check the HUD form (which is required by the government for all mortgages) - they are on there. And if a lawyer processes your closing (even if they are being paid by the bank) then they are also being paid. NO law firm works for free and NO bank is going to absorb that cost.

 

[ICF]

You paid the costs of the loan some how. Origination fees, appraisal fees, title fees etc etc etc are all in there somewhere. The various companies involved besides your bank are getting money somehow and the only one paying them are the seller or the buyer not the bank. If they're not on paper then they're buried in the points or interest paid.

As someone said above, believe what you will....but there were no points or pre-paid interest paid. I work in finance and no how to read the documents and also know what we paid. The amount financed match the amount of the loan prior to refi. They weren't "hidden" anywhere.

There were charges that showed up for some of those items on the closing documents, but they were then credited out so that are net costs --- total on the doucment -- were the $250.

 

[ICF]

Here's whats on my HUD doc from Sept.

Title Serv & Lenders Title Ins - $455
App Fee - $200
Gov't Recording - $46
Credit Rpt - $20
Flood Cert - $4.50
Adj Orig Charges from Union Savings Bank ($429.5)

Net (excluding escrow Dep/Daily Int Charge) was $296 -- as I did forget that we had to pay the recording fee.

There are no other fees listed anywhere on the HUD

 

[platamama]

Then your interest rate was a touch higher than it could've been had you paid the full amount of those fees (those you show above look like reduced fees) out of pocket. Not prepaid interest, not points, but the actual interest rate you're agreeing to. I think what others are trying to say is that there are always closing costs associated with a loan whether they are paid upfront at time of closing or in the form of interest in its various forms e.g. a higher rate, or points.

As the mortgage shopper I think it comes down to figuring out your break-even point and determining if it's one you're happy with, as well as comfort level with the future payment amount.

As for college financial aid planning, I don't know how much a parent's liability figures into their equation. But I've read that the parental assets are not counted as heavily as a student's assets, i.e. in whose name those assets belong. If they are under the student's name, the student is expected to contribute much of it to their education; if in the parent's name then not as much. And the parents home and retirement accounts don't count as assets. Which makes Roth IRAs a pretty attractive spot to park money for school as long as the money is put into something conservative that won't lose value. (Roth IRA contributions can be withdrawn at any time after 5 years, yada yada yada.)