Mortgage Refinance and Credit Repair

Million of Americans have credit problems. Those who own homes can use a mortgage refinance to help with credit repair. Mortgage refinance involves taking out a new mortgage to pay off the original loan. Depending on your equity, the new mortgage can be for more than the amount of the old loan. This money can then be used to for debt consolidation, which can improve your credit rating.

The mortgage refinance business is very competitive. Make sure you don’t get conned by unscrupulous lenders. Jack Guttentag, the Mortgage Professor, cautions, “The refinancing market is something of a jungle, but you are safe if you observe one basic principle: You cannot save money on a refinance unless the interest rate on the new mortgage is below the rate on the existing one.

“Some con artists will show you that your total interest payments will decline if you refinance into their higher-rate loan. However, they get that result by assuming that you will repay your new mortgage (but not your old one) on an accelerated (biweekly) schedule.

“Some others … get (a lower) result by extending the term. If your current mortgage does not have many more years to run, an extension of the term can reduce the payment by more than the higher rate increases it. If you do it, you pay for it big time in the form of a higher loan balance in future years.”

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