Can you walk me through the math here? How do you refi 7 times in 12 mo when they made you wait 3 and 6 mo to close?
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This time refers to a pending refinance, not a completed refinance. So you can take the 6 months out of the timeline. Last time refers to a completed refinance, meaning 3 months between 2 completed refinances, and all 7 within 12 months. There were some refinances completed only a month apart. Also, there were times when I refinanced with another company in between completed Better refinances. So you can think of it as January Better, February other, March Better, April Better, July Better, August other.
I don’t know about your circumstances but so many things don’t work for me:
a) I have never had anyone lock my rate for more than 45 days and you are saying 6 months!! The one time I got close to 45 days bank said I would have to either pay a relock fee or terminate the application.
b) since my mortgages are conforming, they go to Fannie and fannie will not process a refi when there is another refi pending. They sometimes need at least 3 to 6 months seasoning if not more.
c) i don’t know where there is consistent 2.375%?rate. Over last year quotes have been as low as 2.375 and as high as 2.8%. 2.375 with lender credits to net a profit? Definitely not in my area.
d) I definitely could not handle so many hard pulls on my credit, without it going down by at least 50 points
So you have found some glitch in the matrix with better and I will try them but this is going to be hard to replicate or at least wrap my mind around. And providing these docs is a lot of work.
edit: Better does not service my area, so SOL
In some cases, to get best rate, Fannie requires up to 12 months
The existing loan must:
• be a conventional mortgage loan owned or securitized by Fannie Mae.
• be seasoned at least 12 months but no more than 120 months (from the
original note date to new loan note date).
• not be subject to recourse, repurchase agreemen
So may things explained did not work for me
A) I am not seeing any 2.375 rate with lending credit
B) i tried back to back refi with an existing lender and a different lender and both were denied
C) i definitely only see 30 day or 45 day lock and I guess I will ask about multi month.
When I look at the current wholesale pricing, I see 30 year 2.375% can possibly have a bit of lender credit, depending on credit score, loan amount, loan to value, escrow, etc.
https://www.newrezwholesale.com/rate-sheets
I completed refinancing 30 year 2.375% with lender credits a couple times this year, with Better and Loan Depot. I believe no cost but no lender credit is also currently available with Interactive Mortgage.
You should not be asking for multi month lock. I usually see 30 day locks, and lenders will extend the lock at their cost if they couldn’t close in time and want your business. One lock was extended more than 6 months until it finally closed, which is very unusual, but they were slow and wanted my business and I wanted their lender credits. I’m in a lock now with Better that is longer than 2 months because they want to close 6 months after their last close, which is fine with me.
Again, you don’t need to take my word for it. There are plenty of people you can ask on bogleheads and slickdeals about your particular state since Better is not available for you.
Think about lease hacking. Sometimes great deals are available with no work at all and other times it takes some work. Serial mortgage refinancing can be similar. Some companies want your business now, and others want you to wait 6 months. Pricematching is commonly required because it’s rare to get the best pricing upfront.
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Thanks - that link is gold. But unfortunately for me in New England, the 30 year rate is 2.99…
I need to move lol…
At least in NY, both better and loan Depot were not even competitive on either a refi or a purchase.
I just finally closed with key bank, who has the worst technology. Citizens came close on rate. Better couldn’t even come close. Loan Depot got close but higher closing costs.
Key bank ended up at 2.875 for 30 @ 90% no PMI on a jumbo loan. I’ll probably never refinance. It helps it’s our last home at least for 17 years.
Both Better’s and loanDepot’s pricing are terrible upfront. The key for Better is to get them to pricematch their own advertised prices on sites such as Nerdwallet, Zillow, and Bankrate. loanDepot is more difficult in that you have to both pricematch a competitor’s locked loan estimate and find a loan officer who is willing to go through the pricematch procedure.
Socal DP in case this is helpful for anyone:
I rate locked at 2.65% for 75 days with a little over $4k in lender credits tonight with CIT bank on a conventional 30-year fixed refi. I am looking for a zero closing cost refi and the LO says closing costs with them typically come in around $3,500-$3,900.
They also have a $525 incentive for opening a new CIT account, and offer .10% and .20% rate discounts with 10%/25% of the loan in new deposits respectively. 2.45% sounds pretty unbelievable on a 30-year. Apparently you don’t have to keep the account funded for any amount of time; the funds just need to be there at closing.
I am gonna continue pushing with Better.com since that $2k Amex incentive is pretty juicy, but I kind of doubt they’ll match this.
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If you’re in California, you might want to try Interactive Mortgage for 2.375% 30 year no cost.
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I just locked a $1M+ jumbo with Ally - 2.375% with 0.6 points.
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Looking for a broker to refinance a NYC co-op, self employed so a bit tricky. Any recommendations?
Currently working through a refinance with them at the moment and they have been less flexible with price matching than they were last year. Also, they had no flexibility on price matching a jumbo (which earns a $6k rebate on your Amex) so I had to move down to conforming.
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I’m just curious why people just keep hitting their heads against specific vendors. This was my process in 2020 and again a month ago. Go to Costco and request quotes. Go to Zillow and request quotes, take the lowest quote send it to my current mortgage provider (Chase) and ask for a match. That’s it. No need to deal with Better, loan depot, or any other spam generating places. The whole process took maybe an hour and the closing was at home and took 20 minutes.
Thanks, I am in SoCal and checked with them moments ago. Was only offered 2.875% and free closing. Bummer, 2.375% would have been killer!
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It is good to apply to many places. I applied to about 30 when I first started, and I closed a couple that weren’t Better or Loandepot. For serial refinances, Better is easy and predictable as a moneymaker.
It’s true that Better is very bad now for pricematching competitors. Now Better before lock is pricematching their own advertised prices which are pretty good.
A newbie here, i just close my first loan back in June got a rate for 2.875 (Quicken loans) after reading here, i check Better waht they could offer for a refinance, they came back at same exactly rate, send them a email showing 2.375 of they on advertise they came back at 2.6, now the question is why will I do it if at the closing it will cost me nearly 6/8k +/- after counting the 2k and the escrow money …
Can someone explain me what i am missing ?
Thanks in advance
We would need more information. Rates aren’t just a percentage, but also include points or lender credits. Also, we need to know what the loan estimate says for section D.
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