Home Mortgage Refinancing Guide

Flat Fee Mortgage Refinancing

Companies like Ditech offer great rates on their websites…until you read the fine print. I was on Ditech.com earlier today and they were offering a 5% fixed 30 year rate which is actually lower than today’s par or wholesale rate. How are they able to do this?

Check out the fine print and you’ll find out that you have to pay two points just to get this rate. So much for the low, flat fee…read the fine print on other “no fee” mortgage offers and you’ll discover that you’re trading fees for a higher mortgage rate.

While no cost mortgage refinancing sounds like a good offer, the mortgage rate you’re getting isn’t just a quarter point higher than you’d pay otherwise…it’s often a full point higher. There are dozens of no cost mortgage offers out there but most of them are only disguising their fees. If you are truly in need of no cost financing there are ways for honest mortgage brokers to cover your expenses with a higher mortgage rate; however, in most cases this is just a marketing gimmick to sell you an overpriced loan.

Yield Spread Premium Can Be Used For Good…

There are honest mortgage brokers that will structure loans with a higher than market mortgage rate and use the broker rebate to pay closing costs. Many mortgage brokers pocket this rebate after marking up your rate without telling you; this abuse of is so bad that the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development acknowledged that Yield Spread Premium is responsible for homeowners overpaying nearly sixteen billion dollars a year.

The way Yield Spread Premium works is that your broker receives a rebate of 1% of your loan amount for every .25% you pay above the market or par mortgage rate. If you don’t have the money to pay your closing costs your broker can simply use the rebate to cover your expenses. Remember that you’re agreeing to pay a higher mortgage rate in exchange for your closing costs…you’ll have a higher mortgage payment and have to spend more on finance charges for the duration of your loan.

Refinancing your home with a no cost mortgage could result in a monthly payment that is several hundred dollars higher than you’d have if you paid the closing costs yourself. This is also true if you unknowingly agree to a mortgage that includes Yield Spread Premium, a problem that happens to the majority of homeowners in the United States. You can learn more about your mortgage refinancing options, including expensive pitfalls to avoid by registering for our free video tutorial.