Mortgage Refinancing: Saying No to Prepayment Penalties
If you are refinancing your mortgage there are a number of fees and penalties you want to avoid paying. Many homeowners focus only on finding the best interest rate when refinancing their mortgage loans. These homeowners often overpay for everything else on their loans and take out mortgages with prepayment penalties. Here are several tips to help you avoid overpaying for your new mortgage with a prepayment penalty.
Mortgage lenders include prepayment penalties in their loan contracts to discourage borrowers from refinancing the loan. If you sell your home or refinance before the penalty expires you will be required to pay a fee. Prepayment penalties can be quite expensive; it is common for lenders to charge up to six months worth of interest on 85% of the original loan balance. If you finance your mortgage with a bad credit you can expect more stringent prepayment penalties included with your loan.
There are ways to avoid prepayment penalties, even if you have poor credit. The first thing you should check before mortgage refinancing is if your existing mortgage includes this prepayment penalty. If your current mortgage does not have a penalty or the penalty has already expired you are clear to begin mortgage refinancing. If your prepayment penalty has not expired, you can try negotiating with your current lender to see if they will discount or waive the penalty for you. If the existing mortgage lender will not negotiate you will be required to pay the penalty to refinance your loan.
When mortgage refinancing, most items on the loan contract are subject to negotiation. If you havent signed the contract and you find it contains a prepayment penalty, you should negotiate with the lender to have that penalty removed. If you have excellent credit your credit rating is a bargaining chip; threatening to find another mortgage lender will usually do trick. Another thing you could try is offer to pay an additional point in exchange for having the penalty removed. Points are a fee you pay in exchange for something from the lender. You can negotiate to pay points in exchange for a lower interest rate or more favorable terms, in this case to remove the prepayment penalty.
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Louie Latour specializes in showing homeowners how to avoid costly mortgage mistakes and predatory lenders. For a free copy of "Mortgage Refinancing - What You Need to Know," which teaches strategies to find the best mortgage and save thousands of dollars in the process, visit Refiadvisor.com.
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