Here is the next installment in our the Reader’s Questions Series which highlight questions emailed to me by you, the readers of Money Q&A. Be sure to find out at the end of this article how you can receive a free copy of Dave Ramsey’s book, The Total Money Makeover if your money question is chosen to be featured in an upcoming week’s blog post.
If you’re not familiar with Dave Ramsey’s book, you should run right out and get it. It is one of my top ten best personal finance books that everyone should read. Now….on to our reader’s question.
Tread carefully when looking to refinance your home. I recently received a question from a reader, Benjamin, about refinancing his home.
My bank is offering a “home equity refinance” which would lower my rate from 4.625% to 3.89% and drop the remaining years from 26 to 15. It also eliminates my Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI). Is this is a normal usage for home equity loans, or should I be leery of this loan offer?
Tread Carefully With A New Home Refinance
Background: Benjamin also offered this information as a little more background. “I am currently 4 years into a 30-year mortgage and have paid off almost 10% of the principal. My bank is offering a “home equity refinance” which would lower my rate from 4.625% to 3.89%, and drop the remaining years from 26 to 15.
Of course, there is a higher payment, but it also eliminates my PMI of ~$180 per month, and since I’m paying extra to get the principal down faster, it come out to about the same as my current payments.
The bank manager says that even though I only have 10% equity, once the new loan pays off the first loan, I will have 100% equity (for a split second before the new loan takes it all away again). It all sounds a little too good to be true to me because I don’t have the equity on which to base the loan in the first place. I’ve been searching for a few months about how to eliminate my PMI payment sooner, and had just given up when the bank manager offered this to me out of the blue.”
While I don’t have all the facts in front of me, there are a few things to your question that are a little troubling.
It’s Hard To Avoid PMI With Low Equity
I would be very surprised if you could avoid PMI with only 10% equity. You typically need 20% and then most states require your bank to do away with PMI when you reach 22% equity.
The whole point of PMI is to protect banks from borrowers who do not have enough equity. They want people to have “skin in the game” so to speak. PMI hedges the banks’ bets.
Also, I’d be concerned about the closing costs for refinancing. They can typically be upwards of 3% or more of your new loan balance for your home mortgage which can negate a lot of your savings especially if you may move in the next few years.
Summer is fast approaching, and many regions of the country are already starting to feel the heat. As the dreary days of winter start to disappear, the climbing temperatures are encouraging more and more people to reach for their thermostats — only to find that their air conditioning units have fallen to pieces during the cold weather months.
Just how good at math is Andrew Beal? The answer to that question depends on which qualifier you’d like to use as proof of his skills. On the one hand, there’s the fact that he is worth several billion dollars. There’s the fact that a mathematical proposition called Beal’s Conjecture named after him.