Advantages/Disadvantages to refinancing online?
If you can deal with phone calls instead of a face to face meeting, for the average person with an average refinance online tools just offer another way to shop for deals. For new mortgages, I think having a person you can meet face to face will avoid problems, but for just a simple refi, online is one of the places you should check. Compete your current mortgage company, your bank (hopefully credit union), a local broker or two and the online places. The more competition you have, the more power you have in making a good choice. For what its worth, I recently closed on a 30 year refinance mortage with an agent I found through Zillow.  The lender has a perfect 5/5 reputation score, whose office was located within 5 miles of my house, and as suggested by justkt on MrChrister's response, I checked out the business on the better business bureau and its online presence prior to going forward with the bank. The process was relatively painless, and the APR and closing costs were less than my previous loan with a federal credit union which I've used in the past.  I can't say if the bank I'll be using going forward is as good as the one I've used in the past, but overall I'm quite happy with it. I never met the individual in person but this saved both of us a fair amount of time honestly. If you've been in your house for a few years (and have built some equity up) and the market is active in your area, online is probably fine. The local banks will be better if it's not obvious to someone in Bangor, ME that your neighborhood in San Diego is worth substantially more than the crappy area 2 miles away. I've had 3 mortgages, one from a regional bank, one from a broker-sourced national mortgage company and another from a local bank. The bigger banks had better statements and were easier to do stuff with online. The smaller bank has been a better overall value, because the closing costs were low and they waived some customary fees.  In my case, the national mortgage company had a better APR, but my time horizon for staying in the house made the smaller bank (which had a competitive APR, about a half point higher than the lowest advertised) a better value due to much lower up-front costs.
"I haven't heard 30-year mortgages called unwise. As @jared said, the shorter terms often will be cheaper if you are going to pay off within that term anyway, but the extra cost of the 30 may still be justified because it gives you the ""safety net"" of being able to fall back to the lower payment if money gets tight. Cheap insurance if you might need that insurance. That wasn't something I was worried about, so I took a 20-year, later refinanced as 15-year, and got a slightly better rate by doing so. Consider how long you expect to own this house, and shop for the best deal you can find. Remember to figure points into the real cost the loan. There are calculators on many bank/credit-union websites that can help you do this comparison." Do you know how SoFi's business model works? They're usually pretty conservative with their loans and refinancing. But I guess if they were looking to expand into riskier loans then it sounds like they've got some red tape that'd hold them back. Thank you for the explanation, much appreciated. Our mortgage provider actually took the initiative to send us a refinance package with no closing costs to us and nothing added to the note; took us from a 30-year-fixed ~6.5% note to a 15-year-fixed ~5% note, and dropped the monthly payment in the process.  You might talk to your existing lender to see if they would do something like that for you; it gives them a chance to keep your business, and it cuts your costs. Is this an unusual amount to pay for refinancing a home loan? Yes, I would say it seems pretty high.  Although credit unions usually have pretty good deals, I would shop around a bit. Is refinancing not worth it if you might move in the next year or two? Totally not worth it if you'll be moving in a year or two.  You need to think realistically about what you could sell your house for though.  If you bought it 4 years ago, it's likely gone down in value significantly (depending on your locale).  Are you prepared to take a significant loss to sell?  If not, you might be forced to stick it out for 3-5 years or more. Investopedia has a nice article on this here The Key benefit looks like better returns with lower capital. The disadvantage is few brokers offering that can be trusted. Potentially lower return due to margins / spreads. Higher leverage and can become an issue. Nope.  If there is no prepayment penalty go for it.  Find another credit source to use (like a credit card you pay off every month) if you want to get a long history. Saving money on interest is more important to me than minutia in a credit score. I can't think of any more negatives apart from what you mentioned, but the positives might include higher cost base for when you sell the place (this only applies in Australia if it is an investment property) thus having to pay less tax on the capital gains, and being able to borrowing extra funds which may help with your cashflow (especially if you keep the extra funds in an 100% offset account so your interest payable is not increased until you really need the extra funds). "If you mortgage after the fact you will usually pay an extra .25% higher on the interest rate because a ""cash out"" refinance is treated as riskier than a new home purchase mortgage. You might save enough on the purchase price of the home with a cash offer to make that higher interest rate worth it, but in most cases, if you are planning to hold the loan for a long time, it's best to get that mortgage at the time of purchase. You might be able to get the same deal with an offer that says you will pay cash if there are any problems getting the loan approved." "In practical terms, these days, a credit union IS a small ""savings and loan"" bank -- the kind of bank that used to exist before bankers started making money on everything but writing loans. They aren't always going to offer higher interest and/or cheaper loans than the bank-banks, but they're almost always going to be more pleasant to deal with since they consider the depositors and borrowers their stockholders, not just customers. There are minor legal differences (different insurance fund, for example), and you aren't necessarily eligible to open an account at a randomly-chosen credit union (depending on how they've defined the community they're serving), but they will rarely affect you as an account holder. The main downside of credit unions is that, like other small local banks, they will only have a few branches, usually within a limited geographic area. However, I've been using a credit union 200 miles away (and across two state lines on that route, one if I take a large detour) for decades now, and I've found that between bank-by-mail, bank-by-internet, ATM machines, and the ""branch exchange"" program (which lets you use branches of participating credit unions as if they were branches of your own) I really haven't felt a need to get to the branch.  I did find that, due to network limitations of $50K/CU/day, drawing $200,000 worth of bank checks on a single day (when I purchased the house) required running around to four separate branch-exchange credit unions. But that's a weird situation where I was having trouble beating the actual numbers out of the real estate agents until a few days before the sale. And they may have relaxed those limitations since... though if I had to do it again, I'd consider taking a scenic drive to hit an actual branch of my own credit union. If you have the opportunity to join a credit union, I recommend doing so. Even if you don't wind up using it for your ""main"" accounts, they're likely to be people you want to talk to when you're shopping for a loan." "This is the meat of your potato question. The rephrasing of the question to a lending/real estate executive such as myself, I'd ask, what's the scenario? ""I would say you're looking for an Owner Occupied, Super Jumbo Loan with 20% Down or $360K down on the purchase price, $1.8 mil purchase price, Loan Amount is ~$1.45 mil. Fico is strong (assumption). If this is your scenario, please see image. Yellow is important, more debt increases your backend-DTI which is not good for the deal. As long as it's less than 35%, you're okay.  Can someone do this loan, the short answer is yes. It's smart that you want to keep more cash on hand. Which is understandable, if the price of the property declines, you've lost your shirt and your down payment, then it will take close to 10 years to recover your down. Consider that you are buying at a peak in real estate prices. Prices can't go up more than they are now. Consider that properties peaked in 2006, cooled in 2007, and crashed in 2008. Properties declined for more than 25-45% in 2008; regardless of your reasons of not wanting to come to the full 40% down, it's a bit smarter to hold on to cash for other investments purposes. Just incase a recession does hit.  In the end, if you do the deal-You'll pay more in points, a higher rate compared to the 40% down scenario, the origination fee would increase slightly but you'll keep your money on hand to invest elsewhere, perhaps some units that can help with the cashflow of your home. I've highlighted in yellow what the most important factors that will be affected on a lower down payment. If your debt is low or zero, and income is as high as the scenario, with a fico score of at least 680, you can do the deal all day long. These deals are not uncommon in today's market. Rate will vary. Don't pay attention to the rate, the rate will fluctuate based on many variables, but it's a high figure to give you an idea on total cost and monthly payment for qualification purposes, also to look at the DTI requirement for cash/debt.  See Image below:" As for refinancing: Many institutions charge up-front fees when doing any type of vehicle loan. Typically this is in the neighborhood of 1% the value of the loan, with a floor of $100 (although this may vary by lender). However, for the loan the be secured by the vehicle, the principle value must be less than the collateral value. In your case, this means there is a collateral shortfall of $4,000. When working with a traditional bank, you would have two options: pay the difference up front (reducing the principle value of the loan), or obtaining a separate loan for the difference. This separate loan would often have a higher interest rate unless you have some other form of collateral to secure it with. I doubt CarMax would do a separate loan. All that being said, if you plan on selling the vehicle within the next twelves months, don't bother refinancing. It won't be worth the hassle. If you're a bit into the loan, then they're probably hoping that you'll take longer to pay off the loan. Is there a fee for refinancing the loan?  If so, be sure to take that into account. A smart way to approach it (assuming that the fees are low or zero) would be to continue making the same payment you had been before the refinance.  Then you'll end your loan ahead of schedule.  (This assumes that there's no prepayment penalty.) Here are the pros and cons and an analytical framework for making a decision. Pros of walking away: Cons: Here's the framework: compare the value of first and second sections for you [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/business/30serviceside.html?_r=0 [2] http://www.mortgagecalculator.org/ Start with the list of mortgage companies approved to work in your area. There are 80 within 10 miles of my house, and more than 100 in my county. Pick ones you know because they are established businesses in your area, region, or even nationally.   A good place to start might be with your current lender. The risk you seem to be worried about is a scam or a trick. In the recent past the scams were ones where the home owner didn't understand teaser rates, and the risk of interest only and pick-your-payment loans. The simpler the bells and whistles, the less likely you are to be embarking on a risky transaction. It can't hurt to ask an organization like the BBB or neighbors, but realize that many people loved their exotic mortgage until the moment it blew up in their face. So for 5 years your neighbor would have raved about their new mortgage until they discovered how underwater they were.  Regarding how smoothy the transaction is accomplished, is hard to predict. There is great variation in the quality of the loan officers, so a great company can have rookie employees. Unless you can get a recommendation for a specific employee it is hard know if your loan officer is going to give great service.   When getting a mortgage for a purchase, the biggest risk is getting a mortgage that results in a payment you can't afford. This is less of a risk with a refinance because you already have a mortgage and monthly payment. But keep in mind some of the monthly savings is due to stretching out the payments for another 30 years. Know what you are trying to do with the refinance because the streamlined ones cant be used for cash out. Your son can gift you unlimited amount of money. It does not fall under income tax. It falls under gift tax. As per gift tax there is no tax for you. Any interest you earn on this is taxable to you. Your son transferred into savings account... if your son is NRI he can't hold savings account. Ask him to open a NRE account and convert savings account to NRO account.