Why would you refinance your home?

If you would read this a few years ago, chances are that you might not even know what refinancing meant. People would purchase a house, get a mortgage for paying and then keep on making payments every month until they were debt free.

Things are worked out differently nowadays. Most people refinance their loans eventually. Most often, people exchange their loan for some other may be better loan. However, this makes the loan extend for more number of years.

There are several reasons as to why you or anybody would want to refinance their homes and they are valid too. Following are some of the reasons that might make you refinance your home.

Getting a fixed rate of interest

A few years ago, the market saw historic dropping of interest rates. They were lower than ever. As a result, several homeowners decided to go for loans with adjustable rates. These offered them the benefit of lower rates of interest rather than being stuck with a fixed rate. This way they could pay less and be able to purchase more ownership. However, with the current trend of increasing rates, homeowners are finding fixed rate loans much more secure. This is one of the reasons that people might want to convert to fixed rate mortgages.

Looking for a lower rate of interest

This will be the reason when interest rates are dropping like ripe apples. Often people will exchange any high interest loans for the new low interest ones. It is the sensible thing to do anyway. Lower interest also means lower payments every month.

Looking for a longer term

Sometimes, people fail to do the planning. As a result, while a 12-year loan might seem better than a 20-year one because you become debt free in less number of years, you will have to pay bigger instalments every month. This might not be affordable. However, you realise that after you have taken the loan. Therefore, you might then think about refinancing to a longer-term loan so that you can have lower monthly payments.

Looking to borrow money

The previous five years have seen “cash out” refinancing becoming more and more popular. When the homeowners are satisfied that they have enough equity in their house, they look to cash it out in order to get some money to remodel, pay out other debts and for many more reasons.

All these reasons seem quite reasonable and logical to refinance to any homeowner. However, they should realise one thing that with refinancing comes the closing costs and these can be in thousands. If you are considering to refinance your mortgage, you should first think about the amount of time you are thinking of staying in that home. You should not do it unless you are going to stay more than five or six years.