18 months ago I got my first mortgage. In early July 2019 I saw rates going down to around 3.75% which is what I had, but I had a variable rate which would reset in 5.5 years. It was a gamble I was willing to take at the time because I figured in 7 years a lot can happen and there is always the option to refinance.
Refinancing
So the first place I started was with the lender who originated my loan, First Choice which is part of Costco’s program. Doug did an excellent job the first time around and I decided to give him the first shot. He came to me with a 3.5% fixed rate at a cost of $3000. Doing the math I calculated my breakeven to be 3 years and it had the additional benefit of being fixed and therefore I wouldn’t have to worry about changes going forward.
Next, I took that rate to Better.com which claims they will beat any offer by $1000. They took a day and got back to me with an offer of $800 due to significant lender credits. I then told Doug about the deal and he said they could take off another $600 and their automated appraisal model determined I didn’t need an appraisal, meaning the cost was now under $2000. I said thanks, but Better was cheaper so I was going to go with that. Then I told my current loan holder that I was going to refinance and showed her the offer. She was willing to match it, but wasn’t willing to give me the loan estimate. She said that requires a hard pull on my credit and several documents. If I could have the loan estimate then I could have gone back to Better for another $1000 off. So, I decided it wasn’t worth the hassle and the unknown timeline so I started uploading my documents into Better’s portal. However, a few days later the Doug came back to me with fees of ONLY $67. So with confidence in him, I am going to choose him. If I were more ruthless I could probably get Better to give me a deal, but I’m very satisfied with this offer.
Conclusion
Feel free to contact Doug and Better to see what kind of offers you can get. Rates are really good right now so you may be able to save hundreds or even thousands a year with the lower rates. Best of luck to all of you.
This is a great story!