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Got a Home Loan in Virginia?
Get Low Refinance Rates From Just 2.12%.

Sure, getting the best refinance mortgage rates is important. One of the most common mistakes you can make is paying unnecessary fees to get lower refinance mortgage rates. Here are several easy tips to help you pay less for your next home loan from today’s best mortgage lenders.

Shopping For Refinance Mortgage Rates

Getting the lowest refinance mortgage rates is important because you want the lowest monthly payment. Shopping around for lower refinance mortgage rates and fees is the best way to make sure you’re paying less for your home loan than your neighbors. Here are 3 easy tips to get you started.

  1. Check Your Credit Reports First
  2. Before you do anything else you want to make sure that negative or inaccurate information in your credit reports won’t stop you from qualifying for the lowest refinance mortgage rates.

    When is the last time you visited AnnualCreditReport.com? The law requires the three credit monitoring bureaus (Experian, Equifax and TransUnion) to give you a free copy of your credit reports every year. You won’t get a credit score without paying for it; however, you can get free access to your TransUnion credit score with no strings attached at CreditKarma.com.

    If you find inaccurate or outdated information in your credit reports each of the credit bureaus has a way to file disputes online. You’ll need to allow enough time for the correction to be reflected in your credit score before you start shopping for refinance mortgage rates.

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Should I Refinance Now Or Will Rates Drop Again?

Do you feel like you’ve missed the boat on the lowest refinance rates and are asking the question “Should I Refinance now or wait for mortgage rates to go down again?” It’s not unreasonable to question home refinance rates and fees when the so-called experts keep saying that rates have already bottomed out. So if you’re struggling with the question “Should I Refinance” here are several tips to help you and find the best deal while avoiding unnecessary lender fees.

Should I Refinance My Mortgage?

Refinance mortgage rates started going up several weeks ago. Do you feel like you missed the boat and are hoping they fall again? Recent history suggests when there’s an upturn in mortgage rates they reverse direction, even when the experts claim they’ve bottomed out. Mortgage refinance rates always seem to find a way to spiral lower.

Many financial advisors are saying a downward correction is unlikely to happen this time. The Federal Reserve is planning to cut back spending money to boost the economy’s recovery, which is why refinance rates fell so low. When news about the economy is good the bond market is weak which usually means higher mortgage rates.

The opposite is also true and one thing you can count on in this country is bad economic news, which means lower refinance rates.

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How Do I Refinance My Mortgage With Bad Credit?

Are you looking to refinance your home mortgage but have poor credit? Can you still lower your payment with today’s best mortgage lenders? Here are several tips to help you improve your credit and get approved if you’re struggling with the question who will refinance my mortgage loan with bad credit.

Who Will Refinance My Mortgage?

While it’s true that banks and lenders have tightened their approval standards you can still get approved for good mortgage refinance rates with a few dings on your credit report. The bad news is that you might not qualify for the lowest refinance rates you see lenders advertising without paying hefty discount points.

If you’re struggling with bad credit the question you might want to be asking is not be who will refinance my mortgage but should I refinance my mortgage…

How Much Will Refinancing With Poor Credit Cost?

Depending how bad your credit score is you might find that your interest rate will be 1.5 percent higher than if you had good credit on the same mortgage loan. This assumes the bank will approve you and doesn’t take into consideration any discount points you could be required to pay.

Discount points are a fee normally paid for lowering your refinance rates; however, some lenders require borrowers with poor credit to pay points as a condition of loan approval.

One discount point is the equivalent of one percent of your mortgage loan amount. You may have the option of rolling points into your mortgage balance depending on the lender.

What is Considered a Bad Credit Score?

If you haven’t seen your credit score lately you can get a free TransUnion credit score with no strings attached from CreditKarma.com. Be careful with those other free credit score websites as they usually want you to pay for credit monitoring service to gain access to your credit scores.

Any credit score below 650 is generally considered poor by most lenders. Keep in mind that you have three credit scores, one from Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Mortgage lenders use your middle credit score so if your scores are 630, 650 and 705 your middle credit score is 650.

Factors that affect your credit score include how much home equity you have and how much utilization of your credit cards you have. If you max out your credit cards your score is going to suffer; most financial advisors recommend keeping your balances below 30% of your limit.

Depending on the reasons for having less than desirable credit you could have trouble getting your home refinance approved. If you have serious delinquencies (more than 90 days late) or a bankruptcy your home refinance might not be an option. In this case you might be eligible for a loan modification with your mortgage servicer. Contact whomever you’re sending your monthly payments about your modification options.

Depending on the severity of your bad credit rating you may be able to find one of today’s best mortgage lenders to approve your application, you just won’t qualify for the lowest home refinance rates being advertised.

Should I Refinance My Mortgage?

This is a question you’ll need to answer regardless of your credit score. Depending on how much you have to pay closing on your new home loan it might not be worthwhile refinancing. This is especially true if the lender is requiring discount points because of your credit score.

You can figure out if mortgage refinancing is worthwhile by calculating your approximate break-even point for recouping mortgage lender fees. You can do this using a simple mortgage calculator like this one to calculate your new payment amount based on the bad credit refinance rates you’re being offered.

Simple Mortgage Calculator

Loan Amount: Years: Interest Rate:

Annual Taxes: Annual Insurance:

Monthly Payment =

Once you’ve calculated your new payment amount, your monthly savings (if any) is the difference between the new payment and the old one. If you’re not saving anything by refinancing you might need to reevaluate your reasons for refinancing before going forward. There are still good reasons for refinancing when your payment is going up like switching to a fixed-rate mortgage from an adjustable one.

You can approximate how long it’s going to take to reach your break-even point by dividing your monthly savings by the amount it’s going to cost you to close including any discount points.

If you’re able to break even recouping in a reasonable amount of time than refinancing probably makes sense in your situation.

Shop for the Lowest Refinance Rates & Fees

Refinance rate shopping is even more important for homeowners with poor credit. Refinance rates and fees vary widely from one lender to the next, especially when your credit score is an issue.

While it doesn’t cost anything to shop around from today’s best mortgage lenders there are steps you can take to protect your credit score. You also need to make sure you’re comparing apples-to-apples when it comes to mortgage lender fees.

The problem with home refinance rate shopping is that you need to have lenders run your credit to get accurate quotes. When too many lenders run your credit your score gets dinged for hard inquires. The trick is to limit all of your refinance quotes to a 14 day period and you’ll only get one lender inquiry on your credit report.

Make sure you’re using page two of the Good Faith Estimate to compare fees like the loan origination fee from a variety of banks, credit unions and direct lenders. The mortgage origination fee is important because you could pay as little as $400 or as much as 1.5 percent depending on how much time you invest in comparison shopping.

Also make sure the quotes you’re getting are for identical mortgage programs. If you don’t do this it’s not possible to make an apples-to-apples comparison of lender fees.

How to Fix Your Credit Score

Unfortunately there’s no quick fix for a bad credit score. You can boost your credit score by improving your credit utilization or by correcting errors in your credit reports. The law requires that you get free access to your credit report every year from each of the tree credit reporting agencies: TransUnion, Equifax and Experian. You can order your credit reports from the official website AnnualCreditReport.com.

Be careful with sites like Myfico.com that want you to enroll in their credit monitoring service to gain access to your credit reports and scores. You can get free access to your TransUnion score with no strings attached at CreditKarma.com.

Once you’ve got your credit reports from AnnualCreditReport.com you’ll want to check for errors on your payment history and accounts listed on the report. If you find mistakes each reporting agency has a site for filing disputes online. The process of disputing errors on your credit reports is slow and can take anywhere from 60 to 90 days.

Most importantly make sure you’re paying your bills on time. One thing you can do to improve your score relatively quickly is pay down the balances on your credit cards below 30% of your limit.

Sometimes the only way to fix your credit is to let time do the heavy lifting for you. Eventually negative information drops off your credit reports so as long as you’re making all of your payments on time your score will fix itself…eventually.

Click Here For More Details…

You can learn more about paying less for your next home loan from today’s best mortgage lenders by checking out my free Underground Mortgage Videos.

  • Get My Underground Mortgage Videos
Here’s a quick sample to help you get the lowest home refinance rates from today’s best mortgage companies…”
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Are Wells Fargo Home Rebate Card Rewards a Gimmick?

Wells Fargo loves to brag about the rewards it pays homeowners with its Home Rebate Card. The bank claims to have paid Wells Fargo homeowners principle reduction to the tune of $50 million (a nice round number) since the program started in 2007. Sounds like a good deal or is it like those airline reward points from some credit cards that never materialize? Here’s the scoop on the Wells Fargo Home Rebate Card to help you decide if it’s a worthwhile deal.

How The Wells Fargo Home Rebate Card Works

The program is open to Wells Fargo mortgage customers that take out the Wells Fargo Home Rebate credit card. Once you’ve got the card you get a one percent rebate on your eligible purchases that is applied to your mortgage loan’s principal balance.

The bank doles out the rebate in 25$ increments meaning you’ll get $25 credited to your mortgage principal after you spend $2500.

Assuming that the program stays around for 30 years, if you have a $250,000 home loan and you spend that $2,500 every month using the card, Wells Fargo would pay down $8,525 of your mortgage principal balance over 30-years of the mortgage.

This amount is compounded with a shorter mortgage amortization period to a savings of approximately $16,000. It also shortens your term length to 28 years and seven months, meaning you get to pay off that mortgage loan a bit faster.

This is all done by Wells Fargo automatically, the only thing you have to do is use the card for all of your purchases. Wells Fargo sweetens the deal (temporarily) by upping your rebate to three percent for groceries, purchases at the drugstore, and gasoline. Unlike the Bank of America rewards card Wells Fargo only rebates the higher amount for the first six months that you’ve got the card.

There is fine print that you should be aware of that excludes some times of mortgage loans including commercial properties, 2nd mortgage loans, agricultural mortgages, piggyback loans and any home loans that Wells Fargo hasn’t funded yet.

The Truth About Credit Card Rewards

The mortgage principal reduction paid by Wells Fargo is a good thing; however, there is a downside like any other credit card offer out there. The biggest downside about Wells Fargo’s Home Rebate Rewards is that you have to open a credit card account to participate. Credit cards are just a means to acquire more debt, especially if you use the program as Wells Fargo intended.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you pay off your purchases every month; however, if the financially irresponsible could find themselves with even more debts.

Another problem with Wells Fargo’s Home Rebate Rewards is that you’re only earning one percent. There are better offers out there that pay as much as five percent on certain purchases averaging two to three on everything else.

You could apply for a credit card with a better cash rewards program and send in your cash rebates to Wells Fargo as principal payments and come out ahead.

If you’re interested in saving money on your mortgage financing, adopting a bi-weekly payment schedule with any of today’s best mortgage lenders pays down principal and has much more compounded savings than any credit card reward program.

Another problem with Wells Fargo Home Rebate Rewards is buried in the fine print the bank discloses that if they ever sell your home loan your eligibility to participate ceases. They can also pull the plug on the program at their discretion.

As with any credit card if you carry a balance you’re paying a lot more in interest than you’re earning so the net effect is that you’re losing money to get one percent of your purchases.

Pros & Conos of Wells Fargo Home Rebate Rewards

Wells Fargo Home Rebate Rewards Card Pros:

  • No annual cardholder fees
  • No dollar limits on the rebates you earn
  • Your Mortgage Principal pays down faster
  • Pay Less Mortgage/Compounded Savings
  • Shorten Your Mortgage Term Length

Wells Fargo Home Rebate Rewards Card Cons:

  • You have to get a credit card
  • You have to spend to earn mortgage credits
  • Finance charges if not paid off every month
  • More debt
  • Your mortgage could be sold and you’re out of the program
  • Wells Fargo could dump the program

Are Wells Fargo Home Rebate Rewards a gimmick? Considering how much money banks like Wells Fargo make off credit card reward programs it sure sounds like a gimmick to me, but you decide.

Click Here For More Details…

You can learn more about getting the best deal on your next home mortgage loan by checking out my free Underground Mortgage Videos.

  • Get My Underground Mortgage Videos
Here’s a quick sample to help you get the lowest home refinance rates from today’s best mortgage companies…”
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Who Has Today’s Best Mortgage Rates?

Are you considering a new mortgage loan to purchase or refinance your home and want to know who the best mortgage lenders are? You might think that large banks offer the best mortgage rates and consider Wells Fargo or Bank of America as a matter of convenience. One of the most common mortgage misconceptions is that the best mortgage lenders all charge the same fees and that closing costs are regulated by law. Truth be told mortgage fees vary widely and the big names you see claiming to have the best mortgage rates overcharge closing costs. Here are several tips to help you find the best mortgage rates AND lender fees.

The Best Mortgage Lenders All Charge Different Fees

The fact is that banks like Wells Fargo rarely offer the lowest fees, despite what your loan officer might be telling you. The best mortgage rates from one lender might include discount points, an unnecessary expense for most homeowners. Other lenders claim to offer the best mortgage rates and overcharge their loan origination fee.

Shopping for the best mortgage rates and the lowest fees can be confusing, especially if you’re not going about it correctly. One common mortgage mistake responsible for many of your neighbors overpaying is comparing fees from different programs. It’s impossible to make an apples-to-apples comparison of the best mortgage rates and fees if you’re comparing quotes for a 30-year fixed rate to a 15-year adjustable rate mortgage.

How to Shop for the Best Mortgage Rates & Fees

Getting the best mortgage rates isn’t hard, especially if you agree to pay unnecessary discount points. The trick is getting the best mortgage rates while paying as little as possible at closing. Fortunately, using the new Good Faith Estimate makes shopping for the best mortgage rates easy, if you go about it correctly.

Here are six steps for getting the best mortgage rates without overpaying lender fees.

  1. Pick a Mortgage Program & Stick With It
  2. Deciding up front which types of mortgage loans work best for you makes shopping for the best refinance rates and fees so much easier. If you need the lowest payment that won’t change over time choose a 30-year fixed rate home loan. Do you want to build equity and pay off your mortgage as quickly as possible? Choosing a 15-year fixed-rate home loan gets the job done. The point is decide which mortgage program is best for you and don’t let a fast-talking loan officer quote their best mortgage rates across different programs.

  3. Check Your Credit Reports Before You Start Shopping
  4. When is the last time you checked your credit reports for mistakes? If you’re finding the best refinance rates lenders are quoting you are higher than what you’re seeing advertised, the likely culprit is your credit. Spend some time reviewing your credit reports for accuracy at AnnualCreidtReport.com. If you want a free credit score with no strings attached check out CreditKarma.com.

  5. Don’t Get Bamboozled By Discount Points
  6. Lenders love to quote their best mortgage rates that include discount points first. This fee is pure profit for the bank and does nothing for you as a borrower except separate you from your cash. If you’re curious about how paying discount points affects your mortgage payment there is a table on page three of your Good Faith Estimate; however, as a starting point make sure the best mortgage rates you’re being quoted do not include discount points.

  7. Protect Your Credit Shopping for the Best Mortgage Rates
  8. Some homeowners refuse to give their Social Security number out when shopping for the best mortgage rates because they think they’re protecting their credit. While it’s true your credit score will get dinged when a lender runs your credit, you’re not getting an accurate quote if they don’t. The trick to protecting your credit score when shopping for the best mortgage rates is to limit all of your lender inquiries to a 14-day (two week) period. When you do this your credit score will only get dinged for one mortgage lender’s hard inquiry on your credit report.

  9. Use The Good Faith Estimate to Get the Best Refinance Rates
  10. You already know that it’s important to request your quotes from identical mortgage programs that do not include discount points. Once you’ve got quotes from identical programs start with the best mortgage rates and compare loan origination fees. The less you pay closing on your new home loan the more benefit you’ll get from that lender’s best mortgage rates.

    Many loan officers will tell you that one percent is standard for the mortgage origination fee; however, I’ve reviewed community credit unions that charge as little as $400 to arrange your home refi. This loan origination fee can be found on page two, section A of your Good Faith Estimate.

  11. Compare The Mortgage Lender Fees on Page Two
  12. Section B on page two of your Good Faith Estimate are the fees required by individual lenders. You’ll find that closing costs on the Good Faith Estimate vary widely from one lender to the next without explanation. Don’t be afraid to question the fees found on page two of the Good Faith Estimate and haggle with loan officers. If your broker pushes back and refuses to explain the fees that you’re questioning simply move on to the next quote.

    Make sure you’re requesting quotes for the best mortgage rates from a variety of banks, lenders and credit unions. Some of the best deals I’ve found have come from those small community credit unions that you might be overlooking when shopping for your home refinance.

Invest some time shopping for the best mortgage rates and fees using these tips and you’ll save thousands of dollars on your next home loan.

Click Here For More Details…

You can learn more about getting the lowest home refinance rates from today’s best mortgage lenders by checking out my free Underground Mortgage Videos.

  • Get My Underground Mortgage Videos
Here’s a quick sample to help you get the lowest home refinance rates from today’s best mortgage companies…”
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