Home Refinance Mortgage and Home Refinance Process

Choosing a home refinancing mortgage.

To find the best home refinance mortgage rates, you’ll have to do some work, but it won’t take much time. Look at banks, credit unions and online comparison sites. You also can work with a mortgage broker if you want someone to do the legwork for you and potentially get you access to lenders you wouldn’t find on your own—lenders that might offer you better terms.

Working with a refinance calculator will give you a good idea of what to expect. Even better, when you have a few estimates from mortgage lenders you can enter the terms they offer you into the calculator to help determine which one offers the best deal.

The home refinancing process.

During the process of refinancing a mortgage, you take out a brand new home loan which will pay off the remaining balance on your current mortgage. You’ll go through an approval and underwriting process similar to when you took out your current home loan.

The home refinance process is when you replace your current home loan with a new mortgage. Homeowners may have various reasons to refinance a mortgage, including taking advantage of lower interest rates, shortening the loan term, eliminating private mortgage insurance (PMI), changing loan types, and borrowing against home equity.

The home refinancing process in detail.

The first step of this process is to review the types of home refinance to find the option that works best for you. When you apply to refinance, your lender asks for the same information you gave them or another lender when you bought the home. They’ll look at your income, assets, debt and credit score to determine whether you meet the requirements to refinance and can pay back the loan.

Mortgage refinancing requires you to qualify for the loan, just as you had to meet the lender’s requirements for the original mortgage. You file an application, go through the underwriting process and go to closing, as you did when you bought the home.