is it normal to pay like $300 in fees just to qualify for a refinancing?
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
United States
May 24, 2010 6:16am CST
i want to refinance my house and yeah i have been wanting to for awhile but a lot of things came up that pretty much had to put the idea on hold.. well we decided to try for a refinancing loan at our own bank and they want like $300 in fees for application and appraisal.. i dont remember the fees we paid when we bought the house since its been 5 years ago and im lucky to remember yesturday lol but is that normal? to charge to do an application and appraisal? do you have to pay for both or just the application to see if you qualify then the appraisal? we will have to do all of this over the phone/email/fax because of our hours so its not easy to find time to call them up and especially since its in my husbands name..
also this is the bank we had when 5 years ago they (our current bank) said there is no way in hell we would qualify for a loan due to bankruptcy in 2001 yet we got one through GMAC (which our loan has since been sold to Midland) so im wondering if they will have the same attitude even though they have been our bank for like a combined 10 years and the last 9 straight years.. or if i should go back to the original place that we went through and had sold our loan off..
plus i was on unemployment (was laid off) at the time of the original loan so i was left off but now im on disability so i do have an income that is steady so should i try to be put on this loan this time? obviously the unemployment would have hurt our chances but this would be different right?
i hate not knowing this stuff and everywhere i go i either get no-name loan places that i don't know to trust or get the contact office at such and such time for info when there is NO way we can do it on those hours (hubby has missed a LOT of work due to health so no way can he take off for something other than absolutely necessary like life or death) i also dont know which banks are on shaky ground etc.. plus i am wondering if the appraiser has to come inside the house? i have TWO big dogs now and im a twig lol..
anyone know? im seriously an idiot on this subject
4 responses
@syankee525 (6261)
• United States
24 May 10
yeah you do have too pay something for a appraisal but sometime they can add that into the loan. when you brought your house, the owner before had to pay it.
all i can say is good luck, we tried to do our mortage and our house dropped like $80,000 so we couldnt do it.
1 person likes this
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
• United States
24 May 10
so if your house depreciated X amount due to the economy there isnt any way of doing it? the original loan was for 82k and last year i wrote a check towards it for 10k so its like 68k now.. before the housing market took a crap it was upped to about 87k.. i hope it hasnt dropped much but im expecting some.. but if its over 68k i should be ok wouldnt i?
@syankee525 (6261)
• United States
24 May 10
yeah so like with us, our loan would be like 100k, but we would need our house to be worth at least 169k to be able to refince, but they told us our house is worth 109k. so we couldnt refince.
so if you want to refince your house, say for 100k and they say your house is worth 69k, they wont let you do it. your house have to worth even for the amount or more then the loan.
yeah its confusing too me too.
1 person likes this
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
• United States
24 May 10
i swear owning a house and all the papers with it is so confusing ugh
@ebsharer (5515)
• United States
26 May 10
When we refinanced we had to pay for the appraisal (it was $400) plus we had to pay fees and taxes and all kinds of other stuff. For us they added it to the new mortgage. It ended up being about $2,000 when all was said and done. Ultamitaly it was a good thing because our intrest rate when down by 6%, our payments were lower too. The payments also included our insurance and taxes and hadn't before.
Yes the appraiser has to come into the house.
You pay for the application first then if you qualify you pay for the appraiser.
Be careful with Midland! Make sure you keep every thing they have a tendancy to lose payments, paperwork, records!
1 person likes this
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
• United States
27 May 10
ugh great! well at least i wasnt looking to refinance with midland anyways.. im glad i dont have to pay for the appraiser until i know i have been approved.. right now we have a fixed 6.8% but we might be able to get it under 6% so it would be worth it and we are already used to having taxed and insurance put in so i need to make sure the next place does that.. i wouldnt even go through the hassle but it looks like my husband might end up disabled in the near future so im trying to plan ahead on how to make everything as cheap as possible so that if he does we arent freaking out right then
1 person likes this
@ebsharer (5515)
• United States
27 May 10
Start using coupons! I think you "liked" my coupon page on facebook read it check it out. You can litteraly see all the free stuff I get each week!
Having the insurance and taxes in your morgage is SO much easier. I was lucky enough to have really cheap both so it wasn't that big of a deal when I did have to pay it out each time. (annual for taxes) (bi-annualy insurance).
Good luck!
1 person likes this
@uath13 (8192)
• United States
25 May 10
Yea, the banks will hit you with charges for almost everything they can think of. I wouldn't think about refinancing unless I'd somehow paid the total down quite a bit & needed to reduce my monthly payments otherwise your pretty much just pushing back how long it'll take to pay off the loan.
1 person likes this
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
• United States
27 May 10
well we were paying using the equity excellerator to knock off 7 years off the 30 for 5 years now. i made an extra lump sum of 10k last year towards it so its a lot lower now and i think i can get about 1% off my apr to make it worth it.. i still plan on getting on an excellerator plan or just paying extra when i can but some things have come up to where i dont know if my husband will be able to work much longer because of health so i figure if i get it lower now when he does have to quit etc it would give us extra time and also maybe make it affordable if he gets on disability.. otherwise i wouldnt do it just because i dont want to add on years either but i wasnt faced with both me and my husband ending up disabled before either =(
@tessah (6617)
• United States
24 May 10
refinancing is same as getting a mortgage.. there are closing costs unfortunately. but if you shop around a bit with different companies.. you should be able to find one that doesnt have the fees. dont jump at the first company on the block.. you want to get thebest rate services and fees. good luck
1 person likes this
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
• United States
24 May 10
i think the original owner paid the closing costs which is why i am like wtf with it.. either that or i just dont remember.. well our bank was having a good deal but i think i might try where we originally got ours since we had worse credit then lol.. but ugh this whole thing is a nightmare.. not knowing who are trustworthy companies is NOT helping either
