Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Anyone have any home refinancing tips?

Anyone have any home refinancing tips?

Do it would be my best tip, and listen to LH320.

Credit unions are really good for this. The decision maker sits across from you in most cases.

Shop around to include whether or not you're required to escrow taxes and or insurance.   I hate escrowing but often the lender will stick you w a slightly higher rate if you don't escrow.

My old employer was my lender thus I avoided that 25bp markup .   

I'm also a bigger fan of 15 yr but of course your cash flow situation, other financial plans will dictate this.
. 
a lot of other mortgage advice really exists in a vacuum.  Ex.  Avoid PMI.  Easy to say when you readily have 20%+ equity.  Avoid prepayment penalties.   I wouldn't waste time shopping title, accepted as a racket.  You should avoid paying points.  Pay attention to who will service your loan.  

Title insurance is such bullshit. All you have to do is look at Schedule B to know this.

I'm a 30 year fan, at less than 3% anyway.

Can make a whole lot more than that in other areas. Someone can pay it off when I croak.

In Texas Title insurance is regulated by the state  so rates are uniform

Title insurance is not only for certifying the owner of the property but also to insure there are no hidden leans and easements

There is one case I know of where the new homeowner found out there was a natural gas pipeline running right under the house

Title insurance saved the home owners bacon by paying to have the pipeline rerouted

When we originally bought the house, I still had a bankruptcy in my rearview mirror after getting divorced. This had surprisingly little impact on the mortgage or interest rate, except that we had an FHA loan so I have PMI. But home values have skyrocketed and the online calculators have shot up 100K on the home value since then, so we would likely have 20% in equity and I'd like to get rid of it. I would like to get a 15 year loan and hope that the offsets would make it more or less the same monthly cost, but I guess we will see.

Thats what I did by refinancing to a 15 year from a 30 year with about $50 a month more in payment

Ive since paid off the house

had I not done that I would still be paying for another 5 years

When we originally bought the house, I still had a bankruptcy in my rearview mirror after getting divorced. This had surprisingly little impact on the mortgage or interest rate, except that we had an FHA loan so I have PMI. But home values have skyrocketed and the online calculators have shot up 100K on the home value since then, so we would likely have 20% in equity and I'd like to get rid of it. I would like to get a 15 year loan and hope that the offsets would make it more or less the same monthly cost, but I guess we will see.

Yeah, FHA loans only let you get rid of PMI when you're under 80% of the ORIGINAL LTV of the house... So if your house goes up 100%, but you've only paid off 10% of the original value at purchase, the only way to get rid of PMI is to refinance. 

I had that happen before my divorce. House value kept going up while loan was [slowly] going down, and it got beyond 80% LTV so I refinanced to ditch PMI. 

Sorry to hear about the bankruptcy. Puts in perspective the fact that I had to sell my house in the divorce and walk away with equity and I've watch RE values just go up and up since [blocking me out of buying]. But at least it beats bankruptcy... 

They are regulated by every state.

I read about 20 title commitments a week (we do a lot of ALTA/ACSM Land Title Surveys). I'm very familiar with what they are.

And when they all contain things like this one does:

[img width=500 height=141.998]https://i.imgur.com/6phdlyN.png[/img]

It pisses me off.

First of all how could a title company insure against something not in the public records

Second am I wrong to think if its not in the public records chances are that its not enforceable