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Our mortgage refinance calculator helps you decide if it makes sense to refinance based on how long it takes you to recoup your refinance closing costs.
To complete the “Your Current Mortgage” section of the calculator, look for your original loan amount, loan start date, loan term and interest rate on the promissory note you signed with your closing papers.
To complete the “Your New Mortgage” section, input the term and rate you plan to refinance to, as well as an estimated percentage for lender and title fees. Finally, input how many years you plan to stay in your home.
The mortgage refinance calculator will display both a monthly and lifetime cost analysis based on your current and potential new mortgage. The monthly analysis indicates how much you will potentially save or spend on your new monthly mortgage payment. The lifetime analysis indicates how much money you will save in interest over the life of the new loan.
When you refinance your mortgage, you are paying off your current loan with a new one that offers better rates and terms for your situation.
Typically, the goal of a mortgage refinance is to save you money, either in total interest payments or by reducing your monthly costs. Our home loan refinance calculator at the top of the page can help you estimate those costs.
A mortgage refinance can mean big savings, but it may come at a price in the short term. The decision to refinance comes down to whether you’ll be in your home long enough for your monthly savings to outweigh the upfront refinancing costs. If you can save money every month and recoup the costs within the time you plan to stay in your home, a mortgage refinance makes sense.
If you are reducing the term of your loan from a 30-year fixed mortgage to a 15-year fixed mortgage, you should refinance only if you can afford the higher payment that comes with a shorter term. Use our mortgage refinance calculator to estimate your new monthly payments to see what you can afford.
One of the most important calculations to make when you are considering a refinance is called a breakeven, which divides your closing costs by how much you’re saving every month. This tells you how many months it will take before you’ll recoup the cost of refinancing your mortgage.
For example, if you plan to live in a home for 60 more months, but your breakeven results show it will take 70 months for you to recover the costs, the refinance doesn’t make sense.
Our mortgage refinance calculator above can help you determine the amount of time you’ll need to stay in your home after refinancing to break even and cover your costs.
An online rate comparison tool provides you with the fastest feedback on available rates. By just answering a few questions online, lenders will compete for your business with their best refinance offers.
If you don’t use an online rate comparison site, contact at least three to five lenders and email or call them for information. Make sure you collect all of the information on the same day — rates and fees change daily. Feel free to use our mortgage refinance calculator as a resource to compare your best offers.
The refinance process is similar to the steps you followed to get your current mortgage. That typically includes providing income documents, verifying your credit and obtaining a new appraisal on your home. There are some streamline refinance options, such as the FHA streamline or the VA interest rate reduction refinance loan (IRRRL), that allow you to refinance without verifying income, credit or even your home’s value.
The most common types of refinances are offered by conventional, FHA-approved and VA-approved mortgage lenders. We’ve highlighted them below: