We've refinanced with Quicken Loans!

[Coleroo]

Hi all! It's been a few months since I've been around, but wanted to share some exciting financial happenings in our household.

Well, my husband and I are 25/26 years old and purchased our home with a no-doc loan in March of 2006 during the height of the "lending-to-everyone" period. We based our purchase limit on just his income since we knew we'd have children within the next 2 years (which, we did, and I'm now a SAHM), and we were able to secure a 100% financing 30 year fixed.

The only bad part of the deal was that our interest rate was 8.99%. No biggie...we just figured we'd refinance in the future. We plan on raising our children in this home (so we'll be here for quite a while) and if we ever did move, we wouldn't sell...we'd just turn it into rental property (we could easily get 60% more in rent over our mortgage payment).

And guess what? We finally made that leap to refinance. In early December, I started googling for refi information, not really planning to do anything and thinking that it would probably be hard to get a loan at this time. Anyway, I took a chance though and applied to Bank of America and Quicken Loans that night, and by 10 am the next morning a live rep from Quicken Loans had called me to initiate the loan process.

To make a short story even shorter, by 2 pm that same afternoon, they had my earnest money in holding and all of my paperwork (our income statements, W2's, etc) had been faxed off, and much of the paperwork they needed had been signed electronically online.

Two weeks later, a local lawyer was sitting in our living room performing the closing on our refinance!

We secured a 5.125% fixed rate 15 year loan!! Our new payment is ONLY $51 more than our old payment - and that includes PMI. When PMI is paid off in 2 years, our payment will drop by $29/mo!

So now my husband and I will have our home paid off just before we're both 40 years old. Our son, who is 8 months old right now, will be living in a paid off home by the time he enters high school. That's a HUGE "mental" difference than not having it paid off until he's 28 (which was the case in our first loan).

Anyway, I can't say enough good things about Quicken Loans. Just the thought of refinancing had me shakin' in my wallet before, but they made it sooo easy. It was as if they were trying to throw money at us too...made us kinda wonder if they had received some government money and were told to give it away? lol. I dunno, but I'm extremely happy with everything.

And it's really exciting to realized each day that that dreaded refi is a month behind me now!

[maat55]

Congradulation, good move.

[disneysteve]

What a great deal. Good to hear from you. Glad things are going well. And congrats on the addition to the family.

[creditcardfree]

That is excellent news. I'm glad you had a good experience.

I think the best part...it will be paid of in 15 years. That is wonderful!

[loulou]

That's great news! Refi'ing is kind of a pain but so worth it.

[Goldy1]

Great news. What a better rate. Our home will be paid off in a few years too. Tood bad it's just one piece of the financial peace pie;there is still job security, inflation, health nsurance, retirement, cars to buy etc.

That said having one less bill is great!!

[lennygaudy]

Wow that is great-congrats! Just out of curiosity would you mind posting you and your spouse's credit score? I'm looking to do this within the next year but not sure if I'll be able to get a low rate because of my debt-to-income ratio.

[Coleroo]

Originally Posted by lennygaudy

Wow that is great-congrats! Just out of curiosity would you mind posting you and your spouse's credit score? I'm looking to do this within the next year but not sure if I'll be able to get a low rate because of my debt-to-income ratio.

Hi there! Sorry, I just noticed your question!

My husband got the loan completely in his name this time (it had been completely in mine). His credit score was, I believe, 714.

Our debt to income ration was around 43%, including the mortgage payment.

[Coleroo]

P.S.

As long as I'm back on this thread, I'd like to mention we've paid off the rest of our credit card debt now too (see my signature line). Whooo hoooo!!

Now all we have left is the rest of our car loan (currently at 4700, which is on a 4.99% for-life credit card deal. We'll have that paid off within a year!

[creditcardfree]

Congrats on the credit card payoff! Excellent.

[lennygaudy]

Thanks for the info-714, huh, not bad at all! CONGRATS again!