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I've been very happy with Pentagon Federal so far, and everything from the application to the appraisal to the title work to the closing went very smoothly.
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The amount of the closing costs are going to vary with the size of the loan. I originally chose Pentagon Federal after locking in the night before at Countrywide, but the closing costs were easily $1000 less with PenFed, and a better rate to boot. Also, they will keep the loan for the duration, which I like.
jesus, nothing like trimming 10 years off the life of your loan for a mere $34 a month.Just spoke with a Chase phone-hawk about my mortgage with them. 3BR/2BA 1600ft Brick Home w/ 2 Car Garage on 1/4 Acre (7 years old) 25 years remaining on 30 year note.Current Rate: 6%New Rate: 4.875%Current Payment: $995/mo (including Escrow for Tax/Insurance)New Payments:30 Year: $790 (incl Tax/Insurance/Closing)20 Year: $90515 Year: $1029 (4.75% APR)60 Day Option to Re-Lock at lower rate (1 use)Also just submitted my info to Lending Tree to get some comparison quotes. Either way I'll be refinancing very very soon.
Depending on credit score. Conventional if scores are below 680 forget it. FHA if below 580 some lenders have as much as 1% hit to the YSP making rate .5-1% worse. FHA would be the way to go. Rates were at 4.375% today!
Ok we are over 720 so that shouldnt be a problem.I just had this emailed to me: Buddy, I need to collect a $500 fee on your credit card. I will full refund that fee at settlement as part of your closing costs. I would then email you the application for you and Mrs. Buddy to fill out. I would order the appraisal and title and gather your docs together. Then we would get together at the title company and close. I have attached a credit card authorization to this email, just fill it out and either fax it to me at XXX-XXX-XXXX or email it back if you have a scanner. Let me know if you have any questions, give me a call at XXX-XXX-XXXX.Is this sort of practice the norm??
Not at all. That is to make sure you don't run to another broker to get a better rate. Nice trick, but I have never heard of it or tried it myself. Check this out!Look at what banks are paying the broker for 4.875% in YSP Rate 12 Day 30 Day4.375 0.250 0.6254.500 -0.125 0.2504.625 -0.375 0.0004.750 -0.625 -0.2504.875 -0.875 -0.5005.000 -1.000 -0.6255.125 -1.250 -0.8755.250 -1.500 -1.1255.375 -1.500 -1.1255.500 -1.500 -1.1255.625 -1.500 -1.125 ^ These are direct from my ratesheet from one of my lenders. Here they are 4.625% now on a 30 day lock. Look at what brokers are making on CONVENTIONAL LOANS @ 5.25% 1.125 of the loan amount goes in their pockets for selling you at 5.25% instead of 4.625%.
So you are suggesting not to fill out that paper work? I live in Pa any suggestions on the best place to shop around?
In a similar situation, with the same questions about high LTV. Financed nearly 100% three years ago, and could even be upside-down if the house required reappraisal.
Same here. Financed about 90% 2 years ago. To counter the market adjustments, the house burned down so improvements that have been made include brand new roof, brand new furnace, brand new windows, custom cabinets, granite countertops, did some nice work in the bathrooms instead of the standard vinyl tub and shower that the builders were installing. Old stuff was all 12 years old - and a lot of neigbors are starting to get new windows, one neighbor had furnace go, and stuff. Several other minor upgrades including my super awesome coax and cat5 wiring job. So we may actually still be on the plus side thanks to all of that stuff. But it's still going to be a pretty high LTV.
The guy at Countrywide did the same thing. Roughly $450 upfront via credit card to "lock in" the rate.The other thing is that he's charging me a 0.5% premium for being over 80% (short term) and charging me 1.5 points. So that's 5.25% on a 30 year fixed with 1.5 points. I'm assuming that the rate will be 4.75% after I dip below 80%.Is this reasonable? I'm hesitating on this.
So he called wanting to wrap this up in a bow. Asked for a credit card and I balked saying that I was advised that it wasn't common practice. He said Countrywide has done it for years and that it's a SOP for them. He then offered to ask his manager if it would be okay to waive this. I would recoup the money later as it's effectively a deposit, but why do this if you don't have to?This is starting to feel like I'm buying a car. He's going to call back after he talks with his people.
And now they're not sure if they can drop it down that far.This is annoying.
EXACTLY!! IT IS like buying a car!!!! Make sure you SHOP around to get the best deal possible. Only honest/good mortgage guys are going to give you the best deal. That is how I do business. Half percent origination and PAR rates. I have not had a client find a better deal yet! If they did they found the biggest liar!moby fan said:So he called wanting to wrap this up in a bow. Asked for a credit card and I balked saying that I was advised that it wasn't common practice. He said Countrywide has done it for years and that it's a SOP for them. He then offered to ask his manager if it would be okay to waive this. I would recoup the money later as it's effectively a deposit, but why do this if you don't have to?This is starting to feel like I'm buying a car. He's going to call back after he talks with his people.moby fan said:
Depends on the closing costs. Divide closing costs by your monthly savings to see your payback.
I could have bought down to 4.5%, but decided not to.
Exactly, also depends on how long you are staying in the home. Good rule of thumb is if you can recover closing costs within a 24 month period you should do it. Heck, apply the savings to your principal and you might cut 10, 15, 20 years of your mortgage. Anything over $100/mo savings adds up FAST. That is a savings of at least $36,000 over the life of the loan.
Yea, that would be worthwhile a re-fi for you. You have a jumbo and that sucks for you because those rates will still be higher with less pressure to bring them considering the secondary market is still dry for jumbos.
Yup. If you care to know the background of the why behind this read on... if not, forget it. The banks want to get cash upfront (usually only refundable in certain circumstances but goes towards you closing costs) because what happens a lot (even more so in times like this when there is a re-fi frenzy) is that customer goes and starts a re-fi with Bank A. Bank A then goes and starts work on this loan, using up man hours and gets 'order outs' like appraisal and title that cost Bank A money. Then customer hears rates are going down even further or gets a better deal at Bank Z. Customer bolts for Bank Z and Bank A is left with a process that cost them several hundred dollars (not to mention the time that could have been used on a loan they would close on and recoup the cost on). So, this is a way for Bank A to either keep you once you get it started or if you do bolt they are least cover the costs they incurred. Just general FYI.
Oh I completely understand the idea behind it. The annoying thing is that they call these upfront costs things like "appraisal fees" or other misnamed things. I didn't require an appraisal, so it was interesting that they were trying to collect $450 for an appraisal. When I called them on this, they decided it was really $230 that they needed for another non-waivable cost.I don't so much mind the deposit to lock in, but let's at least be honest about it. I felt like I was negotiating with car salesman. These "fees" were clearly arbitrary. If they just come out and say "look, we need X dollars to lock in the rate" that would be perfectly reasonable. Instead, they play these games acting like it's completely out of their hands.
Depends what you do with the extra cash, I suppose.Other than missing out on dropping my rate to 4.5ish, I don't really mind having little, if any, equity in my house. It severely lessens the damage to me if something were to happen and I am forced to walk away. On the other hand, if I lost my job and had hundreds of thousands of $ in equity and had trouble making payments, I'd have a hard time getting any of the cash out of the house to get by, and I would lose tons if they were to foreclose.But, it depends on what you do with the cash.
Depends on 2 things:1) How long do you plan on staying in that house?2) How much are your closing costs?Figure out your monthly savings and divide the total closing costs by this number....example $150/month savings and total closing costs of $3600. You would have a 2 year "break even" window. After that, you would be money ahead. So, theoretically, you would need to stay in that house greater than 2 years to make it worth it, and probably quite a bit longe with the time value of $$ and the inconvenience of going through the loan process, gathering paperwork, etc.
I gotcha. WaMu for a long time did not play this game and then later, they changed. I was not happy with the change. A lot of it could be that the sales are simply not interested in knowing or not adequately trained to understand no only what it is but what parameters they have on waiving it or other options. You would be amazed how many people simply do not challenge something like this when doing a mortgage. It could very well be that you are the first one that has with this guy and he simply has no clue and instead of saying "You know, I am not 100% sure what this is for or if I can work to get some waived" then they talk out of their booty to make it look like they know exactly what they are doing. I always told me guys, it is ok to say "I dont know, but I will find out for you." but if I found them making things up or lying, they would have a long and very un fun conversation with me.
Prime which is what the Fed has basically direct control over is what impacts HELoans. It certainly would be well worth it to call your bank and a few others to see what options you have. Equity loans should have no cost to you pretty much almost across the board.
I think you are mixing up home equity loans and home equity lines of credit. I have a HELOC, which I just pulled out some money on (that other thread you posted in) and my rate is at 2.24% right now which is prime -1.01%. Hence, the pull out to pay off a car loan at almost 7%. Home equity loans are long term loans and if you look at bankrate.com, the rate history has only gone up over the last few months and has not been impacted at all down by the prime rate cust by the Fed.
Have you checked out the Penfed site?They're currently listing 30 yr fixed jumbo at 5.75% (0 pts) or 5.5% (1 pt).
It depends on the bank to how they are setting their pricing on HELoans. The Prime rate, however, is a powerful force on Equties in general. Most HELOC's are tied into the Prime as you mention above. HELoans may be primary driven by Prime, COFI, LIBOR, etc again depending on the bank and other factors. I should not have said "Prime which is what the Fed has basically direct control over is what impacts HELoans" and that was really just being lazy but it is certainly worth looking around for banks to refi a HELoan and that is the bottom line.stbugs said:
You can't, sorry. Unless you want to bring a lot of cash to the table.
Looks like its dropped to 5.375% / 0 pointshttps://www.penfed.org/productsAndRates/mor...tgageCenter.asp
I am not in the know, but I have a feeling they will stay down for a while. The recession sure as heck ain't over and as a few of us posted earlier, when Jim Cramer went nuts on the air and said that rates could hit 3-3.5% he said in 3 months, i.e. March. He is way, way, way more in the know than I am. He may not always be right, but I think he is correct in that the Fed/gov in general sees low rates as a way to help get us out of the pain. I agree to a point, I understand all the "cheap" money folks that want to see house prices continue to plummet, but having a good deal of folks refinance/purchase at ridiculously low rates is one way to get a lot more people on solid ground financially.Also, one thing I like about it is that for the most part this is a reward to those of us on good financial footing, not people with bad credit buying junk they shouldn't have.
Not necessarily true. If the mortgage company was one of the bad ones who gave out loans when they shouldn't have and made people pay high unneeded fees, some of them are selling off the loans to other mortgage companies and paying down the loans and giving better rates. Friend of mine just had this done. I don't know who his company was, but there are some out there that are doing this.
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I'm on hold with Citimortgage trying to make something happen here.
