Services Provided
Refinance primary home loan
Experience and Good Comments
Hired for the 3rd time. This time is to do refinance primary home loan.
Since my previous refinance with Debbie about 4 years ago, she kept me posted with the loan rate whenever there was some big change like +/-0.5%. About 1 once per every 2 or 3 months, not frequently like spam mails, but just kept the home owner in the information loop.
In Sep, 2016, while rate was still low, I called Debbie to discuss the refinance option, rate, and etc. Both of us agreed on the uncertainty about the presidential election in Nov, so we decided to do a refinance before it gets worse. (Actually, the rate did start to rise up in middle Nov.)
No need to describe further details, most things went smoothly. See section below for an outlier. I locked the rate on 10/21, 2016, and closed on 11/02. My rate is 2.75%, 15years, fixed, for 417K.
Share with you good tips to get better rate while get approval quickly, many of them are learnt from Debbie:
* improve your credit score to 750+, better to be 800+ // search online about how to improve
* loan amount equal to or less than 417K; otherwise will be a JUMBO loan for higher rate
* loan amount should be under 60% of home value, in refinance case, so as to get approval quickly
* Monthly payment amount for all loans of the family should be less than 43% of home incoming == (base pay + cash bonus) / 12. Eg, if the family has 100K base pay + 20K cash bonus for a whole year, then the monthly payment amount should be less than $4300.
If the family has rental property, then 75% of the rental incoming can be added to "base pay"
Not-So-Good Comments
If possible, please avoid the appraiser Irlene. In a heavy-rainy afternoon, she arrived earlier prior to our appointment, and entered my home from backyard, without removing shoes first. The muddy footprint left on my first-floor carpet.
When I got home on our appointment time and met her on the 2nd floor. Her shoes were still on (without shoe cover) until I told her to remove.
This is a basic common sense for hygiene, which shouldn't need reminder, especially when an appraiser gets paid to provide service at your home.
