Best lender to refi with

[nick__45]

I have a 30 years fixed rate at 4.99 (I think APR is a little higher.) that I took out less than 13 months ago to buy a house. I like to refi but it seems that many places charge a lot of fee. Without counting property tax, which is paid anyway, the refi cost is around $4k. Do I need to have my home re-appraised again because it was appraised for $258k and I bought it for $221.9k and the current balance is $170k. I don't see why I have to pay 400 dollars to have someone tells me my house hasn't lost value that much, in just a year. There are houses smaller in the neighborhood sold recently for more than what my house, which was a Short Sale, went for. Only 4 houses listed and 3 sold within the last 18 months.

I am with Suntrust but their current rate is high. Of course, I didn't know what other people had. I went with Suntrust because they were mortgage holder of another house I looked at. I stayed with them because their rate seemed lower than the banks around here. Of course, I didn't shop online because I needed to close quick it's much easier to do so with a bank that has 2 mortgage in the town we looked at.

I think I am going to go with 15 years fixed rate to make the fee worth it. It does cost more each month but that should force me to save and be more frugal. I don't mind living paycheck to paycheck and looking like a bump.

Thanks.

[disneysteve]

You may or may not need an appraisal. It depends on the lender. We just did a refi and did not need an appraisal but that was mainly because we were only borrowing 85K on a house worth 250K. The lender realized that even if the value was less than I claimed, the amount we were borrowing was insignificant. They will look at comps and decide. If you don't need an appraisal, that reduces the refi costs by a few hundred dollars.

If you can swing a 15-year loan, you can probably drop your rate 1 to 1.5%. We got 3.99% and I know others who have gotten 3.75% recently.

There are costs to refi but you spend a few thousand to save tens of thousands over the life of the loan. I don't have a problem with that.

[nick__45]

I saw several places/mortgage brokers with 3.5% rate and 3.68% APR. I know you went with Quicken but their rate is high and not local. I want to meet someone in person before I hand over my bank statements and mortgage note.

I am also debating 15 or 30 years rate. The rate is low so there is a lure to drag it out to 30 years instead of paying 300-400 dollars extra a month and have half of the time. But I have very low saving discipline and always need to have a goal that force to me save.

[disneysteve]

I know you went with Quicken but their rate is high and not local. I want to meet someone in person before I hand over my bank statements and mortgage note.

I know I could have found a slightly better rate but I was more concerned with convenience and customer service and Quicken excels in that area. It is so easy to deal with them and just do everything online and by fax and then do closing right at our kitchen table. I didn't have to schedule any appointments (except closing), didn't have to travel anywhere or wait for anyone.