Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles Should you refinance your mortgage? That's today's show. Let's get into it. Hey, everybody. I'm-- I was going to say I'm Clayton Morris but I'm not. I'm Natali Morris and this is Clayton Morris. You're listening to the Investing in Real Estate show with Clayton and Natali Morris. Clayton Morris is a little bit under the weather. Yeah, I'm sick as a dog, so maybe it's-- He's got the Kathleen Turner voice. So you do not want to be me. I know you thought you were going to be me by using my name, but you do not want to be me right. That's going to get me nowhere at this point. Today, we want to talk about how to calculate whether or not you should refinance your mortgage. Now this applies to anyone who owns a home and has a primary home mortgage, but also anyone who is an investor and has a mortgage and they want to rethink that mortgage. On your rental property. Right. As we're speaking, mortgage rates are going down. So that gets people thinking, oh, could I get a better mortgage? We just saw Wall Street Journal cover story this morning about interest rates helping out the housing market at an eight month low. So now might be the time to strike if you want to go out there and get that refinancing. But we want this video to be evergreen, so you could be listening to it at a time when mortgage rates are increasing. In which case, we just want to make sure that you know how to do this calculation. It's pretty simple calculation but I think a lot of people sort of think in terms of just monthly payment. Like, OK, this loan can save me so much per month and so I want it. Which sounds like a great idea, but you have to remember that when you're refinancing your loan, it's the word, the part of it that's re, doesn't really apply because you're not redoing one loan. You're getting a whole new product. You're going a whole new loan. So you're just taking one financial product for another. Right? Right. A lot of times people do it with different banks, although a lot of times your own bank could do it. And most of the time they will want to. But you have to think of it like, OK, let's pretend bank A gave me a mortgage at 5%, but now rates are around 3.5%. So bank B is going to offer to pay off bank A, so you no longer have a relationship with bank A and now be your mortgage lender, bank B, on a new product, right. A lot of times that's great because they're going to look at what's left on the loan from bank A and say, OK, you have $100,000. I'll pay off bank A $100,000. They're out of your life. They don't exist. Right. Right. Your new relationship is $100,000 mortgage with bank B, right. But what you want to look at is what's your bottom line because, most of the time you don't owe bank A just $100,000. You owe them $100,000 and maybe some fees, maybe an escrow account, whatever. Right. So they're going to look at that total payoff, which is you owe them let's say 102. Right. Right, and then they're going to say, now you work for us. Now your relationship, I own you. Well, that's why we wrote-- Right. And that's why we wrote our book, "How to Pay Off Your Mortgage in 5 Years." Shameless plug, link below. But we've done this strategy a number of times with our home equity lines and using one financial product to say goodbye to the other financial product. Right, but we're not talking about home equity line of credit at all today. So take that and-- Right. --put it away. Read the book. But really we're talking about bank A and bank B. Don't digress. I'll go back to my cold medicine. You take up your box of tissues. Let the big boys talk. OK. So now we're talking-- So when is it-- --about bank B. Let me ask you this question. No, please let me finish the point. OK. Because I think if someone's trying to follow this, and you go on a tangent-- I'm going to-- OK. But go ahead. OK. Where was I? The new product is with bank B. Right. And now you're $100,000 loan is instead of 5%, it's at 3.5%. That means your monthly payment is now lower. But most likely you've got a brand new mortgage that is now 30 years. What if you were five years into your relationship with bank A? Well now your mortgage is 35 years, right. So we talk about in our book how you're number two, your two main enemies-- Interest. --are-- Interest and time. --interest and time. So you're now winning the interest game, but you're losing the time game. You just added-- Right. --five years back to your loan. Now is it worth it? Maybe, right? Because you do want to pay the lowest amount of money for money. Right? Question. Yeah. So now my question is. Now you may ask a question. When, Natali, is it worth it to refinance your home? When is it worth it? OK. So a general rule of thumb is if you can save 0.75 of a percentage point, or between that and higher, then it will work out. Right? Then it's-- So between-- --worth doing. So between 0.75 and 1% per month in the APR, then it's worth it. So let's say you have a 4% interest rate and the bank is offering you 2.25%, do it. Right? But here are some caveats. You want to make sure that you're doing it in a home that you're going to stay in long enough to recoup the closing costs. Because bank B is going to say to you, sure, I'll take on that new loan, right. You can now owe me $100,000 at 3.25%, right. Awesome. So let's pretend-- And I didn't do a proper amortization schedule on this, but let's pretend you owed bank A $1,500 a month. That's your mortgage payment. Mhm. OK but you refinanced with bank B and your new mortgage payment is 12 50, $1,250 a month. So what are you saving every month? What's 1,500 minus 1,250 is 250. 250, right. OK, very good, honey. So you're saving $250 a month. That feels great, right? But don't be misled-- But-- --by that monthly payment.