THE concept of mortgage is well known in Texas, United States. Most homebuyers avail of mortgage loans. If you have taken a mortgage loan and are still paying your monthly installments on it, you should know about ‘mortgage refinance’ too.

Mortgage Banker for texas

 

Mortgage refinance is a way to pay back your original mortgage loan by taking a new loan against the same property that you collateralized for the earlier loan. Mortgage refinance is a tool that enables you to revise the terms and conditions of your mortgage to suit any change in your needs and/or to take advantage of lower interest rates if the current rate is lower than that at which you took your original loan. For mortgage borrowers in the state of Texas, many refinance choices are available. But calculation of which refinance deal is the best for you nay be beyond your skill-set. One option to overcome this barrier is to learn everything about mortgage refinance and then decide what is good for you.

 

This would be a Herculean task and you don’t have the time to take this burden on your own shoulders. Expert help is available in Texas – for free. This article will take you through the different steps toward a decision that will finally be taken by you.

 

Step 1 : Decide what you want. One or more of the following may be what you want :

 

• You want to lower your monthly payments.
• You want to increase the duration of your mortgage obligations.
• You want an early closure of your mortgage loan.
• You want a lump sum of dollars to meet with an urgent need.
• You want to sell off your house sooner than you earlier envisaged.
• You want to sell off your house earlier than you earlier envisaged.
• You want to make low payments now and higher payments later.
• You now want an interest-only loan and the principal will be paid at the end of the loan term via an investment product, pension or life insurance.
• You want to benefit from lower interest rates.

 

There may be other reasons for you to seek mortgage refinance, but the above are the commonest reasons.

 

Step 2 : Log on to the Internet, visit www.google.com, and search the web with keywords ‘mortgage refinance online calculator Texas’. You may also use more appropriate keywords you can think of, but this writer found good results by using the words stated.

 

Step 3 : Google.com will display URLs (web addresses), page title of each URL, and brief extracts of the contents. Click a URL whose text extract suggests that it has an online mortgage loan calculator. Two helpful web resources this writer found are :

 

http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/cutmortgage/cutmortgage.html
http://www.erate.com, and www.mortgageloan.com.

There were also many other websites listed on the google search results page, and this writer has no reason to believe they aren’t good. After all, there is a high level of standardization in mortgage and mortgage refinance deals on offer at a given time in Texas, regardless who the ultimate lender will be.

Step 4 : Once you are at the website, use its online calculator. You will be asked to enter details of your needs and of your house, which only you can know. Some of the information you will need to provide is :

 

• the exact location (or ZIP code) of your property.
• the type of house it is, the interest rate you are paying on your current mortgage.
• the interest rate you want to pay.
• the number of years you want to retain ownership of your currently mortgaged house.
• the outstanding amount on your current mortgage.
• the amount of new loan you want.
• the duration of the loan you want.
• the ‘points’ you will pay (1 point = 1% of the loan amount you want).
• the type of refinance you want: fixed rate, adjustable rate, or jumbo.
• your credit profile.

 

The above are the main questions that you have to answer into the online calculators, though there may be some other questions too.

 

Step 5 : Once you have entered the above information and click the ‘calculate’ or its equivalent button, the calculator, within seconds, will provide you with different options for you to consider.

 

Repeat the above steps on another website, and compare the results. Make your pick on the basis of what is best for you.

 

Step 6 : Now that you are reasonably familiar with the terms of refinance suitable to you, it’s time to get in touch with real-world lenders and/or brokers registered in Texas. You can locate them through the internet again; in most cases, the firms whose online calculator you have used will themselves be able to process your refinance formalities. In some cases, you may have to pay an upfront fee; if so, be sure that you assign a firm to go ahead only after you are sure that you have made the correct pick for you. Also, remember that the actual terms of the refinance loan may be slightly different from the online calculator’s results.

 

Conclusion

 

Whether at the online calculator stage or during face-to-face interaction with lenders/brokers, remember to consider offers from two or three sources instead of relying on only one. Also remember that the lowest interest rate is usually not enough of an indicator of how much the refinance will cost you after upfront fees and other costs are added. You must therefore ask for the ‘APR’ (annual percentage rate), which will show how much money will actually go from your pocket in the course of a year. Finally, remember there is no universal solution to all refinance needs. You have to choose the refinance loan that is best for you.