Is now the time to refinance a mortgage?

mtn said:

OHSCrifle said:

At what point does the borrower's age impact the ability to get a 30 year mortgage? I wondered about that when I refinanced at age 45.

It never does. That'd be age discrimination, and it is illegal. The only way that it would is when looking at income - a retired person could theoretically have $0 income, which would impact their ability to get any loan whatsoever. But at that point, if they had $0 income, they'd probably have significant amounts of cash, so why would they get a mortgage at all?

 

And the financer shouldn't really care either, as long as their appraiser is worth anything. They'd have a lien on the property, more or less the definition of a mortgage. 

 

 

Point well made. 
 

Yoda says..

Logic. You just used. 
 

frenchyd said:

In reply to mtn :

I got refi at age 71 they look at your credit score and income. Then check the value of the property. 
Frankly they hope you kick off if there is sufficient equity and they might profit from it. 

No, they can’t make a profit from your death, assuming you have someone named to inherit the property in your will. Or as long as you have an heir. They have a lien on it, but legally they can only recoup the amount of the outstanding debt and any fees/penalties. 

In reply to mtn :

While the law says one thing you and I know banks and mortgage holders may have other opinions. Since they have lawyers and money, it's not uncommon for them to wind up better off.  Grieving  widows, family,  often fail to seek legal redress.  Or may not even know.     Using foreclosure laws and filing prior to probate.

When I ran afoul of a greedy banker it took the Minnesota State attorney General,  a US senator, And several other  influential people to make them follow the law. The attorney I hired could not protect me.  
Then several years later they tried again.   That time I had my ducks in a row and quashed their attempt. 
The ironic thing is I'd been a loyal customer of theirs for well over 30 years and they were fabulous. Then suddenly they were taken over and instantly new management saw a chance to turn a quick profit and the fight was on.  

To the original question, I hope so.  Mine is due next month, and I'm hoping to get below 3% again.

In reply to frenchyd :

Are you prepared to share more details on that?  If not I understand.

In reply to Adrian_Thompson :

Just to say that if a bank or credit union ever wants to run roughshod over you. Don't let them. Many politicians are just empty suits taking money from wherever they can get it.  
However there are some great civil servants out there. Willing to stand up to the rich and powerful to ensure you get a fair shake. 

In reply to Adrian_Thompson :

Let me try to develop that as far as I believe I can. The finically institution I had been working with was a local one connected to Government and  similar organizations. ( but not government owned)  It was later taken over by a commercial related organization and many if not most of the bankers/ representatives stopped working there.   Our account was mishandled and previous arrangements not completed. Leaving me in an extremely vulnerable position. 
  Based on previous conversations I was pursaded to completely redo my home which I owed a tiny faction of it's value by Getting home equity loans as needed and then they would all be rolled into a totally new mortgage.  
The institution changed ownership just as all this was to transpire, while still employed and in an excellent financial condition.  
Month after month it was delayed until finally I was part of the 22 million unemployed people.  That's when they struck. 
I won't list the dirty tricks they pulled but some were astonishingly foul.  All of them were extremely costly.   Eventually forcing me to close an account of very close to 40 years.  An account where I'd never bounced a check back when all bills were paid by check and always had a solid respectable balance.  
  During my late wife's battle with cancer much of my financial  reserves were used trying to retain ownership of my home. Even recently as last year they took one more swing at underhandedly taking it from me but by that time I was  fully prepared

We just closed on a refi with our existing lender yesterday. Went from 3.17(iirc) to 2.99, 30yr fix VA for both the original & new mortgage. It should let us pay the house off ~5 years earlier & save quite a bit money in the process. 

I'm just here to say, DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT, under any circumstances get a mortgage with Wells Fargo even if they offer 0% interest. AND, if Wells Fargo buys your Mortgage refi with another bank ASAP no matter what the extra costs are.

In reply to NOT A TA :

Not just Wells Fargo, if 2008 taught us anything it's that few banks are above reproach.  
how does the expression go? 
MONEY CORRUPTS, 

Lots of money••••••••

NOT A TA said:

I'm just here to say, DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT, under any circumstances get a mortgage with Wells Fargo even if they offer 0% interest. AND, if Wells Fargo buys your Mortgage refi with another bank ASAP no matter what the extra costs are.

Our mortgage was bought by Wells Fargo. I don't really care for them, but our rate is good. 

Mazdax605 said:

NOT A TA said:

I'm just here to say, DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT, under any circumstances get a mortgage with Wells Fargo even if they offer 0% interest. AND, if Wells Fargo buys your Mortgage refi with another bank ASAP no matter what the extra costs are.

Our mortgage was bought by Wells Fargo. I don't really care for them, but our rate is good. 

Get out of it if you can. Doesn't matter if your rate goes up or there are costs. Think of it as insurance against losing much more. You've been warned. And I've had more than one mortgage owned by them and bought my way out of one once.

Adrian_Thompson said:

In reply to frenchyd :

Are you prepared to share more details on that?  If not I understand.

Don't worry, he will share. If not enough now, just ask a random question in a few days, mention money, and he will start again...

NOT A TA said:

Mazdax605 said:

NOT A TA said:

I'm just here to say, DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT, under any circumstances get a mortgage with Wells Fargo even if they offer 0% interest. AND, if Wells Fargo buys your Mortgage refi with another bank ASAP no matter what the extra costs are.

Our mortgage was bought by Wells Fargo. I don't really care for them, but our rate is good. 

Get out of it if you can. Doesn't matter if your rate goes up or there are costs. Think of it as insurance against losing much more. You've been warned. And I've had more than one mortgage owned by them and bought my way out of one once.

We had a problem with them a couple of years ago. Our escrow was insufficient due to our town taxes going up. They sent us a notice saying we could pay the amount the account was insufficient and our payments would remain the same. I sent off a check for that amount and continued paying the same mortgage payment for months following it. Then we started getting calls and letters saying we haven't been making our payments and that they wanted to foreclose. I called them and explained what I had done. They decided that the $400 or so was for principal, even though I sent it in with the stub from the letter they sent us. It took a long time to get it figured out and they wanted to ding our credit score, but I was having none of it. Maybe we should check with my credit union about getting a mortgage from them? 

In reply to Mazdax605 :

Who originated the mortgage often has little to do with who services the loan. Plus smaller financial institutions often simply can't tie up their capitol for up to 30 years. 
Second ownership/control of financial institutions changes.  And not always for the better. 
 

I know Wells Fargo has a poor reputation and some of it might be well deserved. Yet it's not as simple as it would seem.  
There is a steady attempt on hacking into the banks etc, not just by American thieves but Russia, China, North Korea Iran etc etc etc. Nations actually finance some of their terrorism with American Funds.  The 
Banking industry has to be constantly vigilant and changing things.  
That's why Betty in accounting no longer handles your account. She knew you and knew what's going on. 
Now it's the next employee who's following his procedures.  He may be in Texas or Minnesota or India. working from home, and all he's got is notes and procedures in front of him.  The note about raising your payments due to a local increase in taxes is in another place he knows nothing about.  
 

My wife works in IT for a fincial  institution. She gets a very impressive income because she can keep 10,000- 100,000 balls in the cyber air without dropping any but it's a steady 8-9 hour grind  changing-upgrading systems to stay ahead of hackers and thieves. ( and she isn't even in security.)

If you want a good income and like the idea of working from home that is where to go.  They are always hiring.  Much of the work is done in India but because of cultural differences and difficulty understanding because of the foreign accents  mistakes are made.  That's one reason they've imported people from India here. Not to take AMERICAN jobs.  Banking will hire any American with the training and skills and pay a real premium wage  but there just aren't enough.  
India has the people with those.  They just need to learn our culture and accents. 
 

Mazdax605 said:

NOT A TA said:

Mazdax605 said:

NOT A TA said:

I'm just here to say, DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT, under any circumstances get a mortgage with Wells Fargo even if they offer 0% interest. AND, if Wells Fargo buys your Mortgage refi with another bank ASAP no matter what the extra costs are.

Our mortgage was bought by Wells Fargo. I don't really care for them, but our rate is good. 

Get out of it if you can. Doesn't matter if your rate goes up or there are costs. Think of it as insurance against losing much more. You've been warned. And I've had more than one mortgage owned by them and bought my way out of one once.

We had a problem with them a couple of years ago. Our escrow was insufficient due to our town taxes going up. They sent us a notice saying we could pay the amount the account was insufficient and our payments would remain the same. I sent off a check for that amount and continued paying the same mortgage payment for months following it. Then we started getting calls and letters saying we haven't been making our payments and that they wanted to foreclose. I called them and explained what I had done. They decided that the $400 or so was for principal, even though I sent it in with the stub from the letter they sent us. It took a long time to get it figured out and they wanted to ding our credit score, but I was having none of it. Maybe we should check with my credit union about getting a mortgage from them? 

I had something similar with US Bank, who purchased our loan. 

They incorrectly calculated the escrow from the very beginning. I knew once the sale came through, the property taxes were going to go from $600 to $2000 per year. So I was expecting that. What I was not expecting was them to say, "Oh yeah, we made a mistake on the insurance and escrow, so you can either write a check for $4500 or pay out over the next 12 months."

On the average day, you're not expecting your mortgage payment to jump $400/month. Because they also changed their policy on how much had to be in the escrow account at all times. 

Thankfully, I didn't buy at the limit of what I could afford. It basically just meant, well, I guess we aren't going to go to as many Thunder games or out as much the next 12 months while we get caught up.

FWIW, BofA botched the escrow withholding for a buddy of mine. They flat refused to pay the penalty even though he has an MBA and presented iron clad proof that it was 100% their fault.

So, this seems to be a widespread problem that could be resolved by following the mantra “if you want a job done right…”.

RX Reven' said:

FWIW, BofA botched the escrow withholding for a buddy of mine. They flat refused to pay the penalty even though he has an MBA and presented iron clad proof that it was 100% their fault.

So, this seems to be a widespread problem that could be resolved by following the mantra “if you want a job done right…”.

BofA and Wells Fargo are notorious for this. My parents had theirs berkeleyed up by WF - a quick threat of reporting them to the CFPB as a violation of the FDCPA cleared that up, but it took finding the right manager in the call center to do it. BoA is just a PITA completely that will never get a dime of mine thanks to how difficult they made it for my mom who was the executor of an estate. My uncle actually used to work for BoA - he had worked for Continental, when BoA bought them he remained with them for a few years. He said that our impression was exactly correct and they were a gigantic mess. I worked for a bank that had probably 70% of their employees from another bank that BoA purchased, same story for anyone who followed to BoA. Not a good one either. The only folks who had anything good to say were those who worked in audit: They were never short of work and followups.

Original topic refinance if you can save a percent.

Escrow topic, I don't think I've had a single instance where escrow has been done well. Every year I get a refund check because my account is overfunded then my mortgage is raised for the next year. When I sold my house they did the math so poorly I receive an additional $5000 back from the mortgage company because of poor calculations. 
 

Stuck with a mortgage company now that doesn't do automatic withdrawals. Payed the new one down enough that it is unsellable after selling the old house. 

mtn said:

RX Reven' said:

FWIW, BofA botched the escrow withholding for a buddy of mine. They flat refused to pay the penalty even though he has an MBA and presented iron clad proof that it was 100% their fault.

So, this seems to be a widespread problem that could be resolved by following the mantra “if you want a job done right…”.

BofA and Wells Fargo are notorious for this. My parents had theirs berkeleyed up by WF - a quick threat of reporting them to the CFPB as a violation of the FDCPA cleared that up, but it took finding the right manager in the call center to do it. BoA is just a PITA completely that will never get a dime of mine thanks to how difficult they made it for my mom who was the executor of an estate. My uncle actually used to work for BoA - he had worked for Continental, when BoA bought them he remained with them for a few years. He said that our impression was exactly correct and they were a gigantic mess. I worked for a bank that had probably 70% of their employees from another bank that BoA purchased, same story for anyone who followed to BoA. Not a good one either. The only folks who had anything good to say were those who worked in audit: They were never short of work and followups.

My personal BofA horror story…

I have a little coin operated business on the side and I used to deposit quarters at BofA. For years, I’d turn in professional, serialized, sealed, tamper proof bags but one day BofA started requiring that the coins be loose and would literally cut open my bags and just dump the coins into burlap bags.

Additionally, they started refusing to give me a receipt saying they had to count the coins first. Can you imagine walking into a bank, handing over money, and just walking out with absolutely nothing.

Anyway, shortly after implementing their new policy, they started short changing me…sometimes $50, sometimes $150...never once did they deposit too much so this isn't a case of their not being able to count accurately.

I have a professional coin counter and I’ve run my business for decades…$500 in quarter weighs ~24.7 pounds…$350 would weight 17.29…I’m pretty berking sure I’d notice a 7.71 pound difference.

I called the feds on them but by the time I switched banks, the total loss was under $1,000 and to the best of my knowledge, they didn’t take any action.

Sorry to get off topic, I just wanted to share the blatant, in your face, theft experience I had with BofA.

Totally agree with Planosss "You can take a canoe...for up to half of your 401k balance, don’t withdraw, you’ll face heavy penalties." I took a canoe a month ago to pay some bills and some fines. To tell you the truth it was a paddle. So if you need some spam take a good canoe.

willistrong said:

Totally agree with Planosss "You can take a canoe...for up to half of your 401k balance, don’t withdraw, you’ll face heavy penalties." I took a canoe a month ago to pay some bills and some fines. To tell you the truth it was a paddle. So if you need some spam take a good canoe.

Hi! I see that you have some experience with credit and loans. Can you help me? I want to buy a new car but I don't have enough money. Should I take a car in leasing or maybe take a loan and buy the car? I don't know what to do cuz I have never been in such a situation. ( Also is this CANOE a nice solution or not?

I think this thread is worthy of a lock before the 3rd canoe arrives.