If you are a homeowner with a recent bankruptcy and have been putting off mortgage refinancing, a new mortgage loan could help you rebuild your credit. It is much easier today to get approved with a recent bankruptcy than in previous years; however, it will take some work on your part to avoid overpaying for the loan. Here are several tips to help you avoid overpaying when mortgage refinancing after bankruptcy.

Because you will be paying a higher mortgage rate due to your bankruptcy, it is important to shop from a variety of lenders for the most competitive offer. When you compare mortgage offers make sure you compare all fees and don’t get hung up on mortgage rates. Many people think choosing the loan with the lowest rate means they’ll get a good deal when mortgage refinancing. These homeowners overpay thousands of dollars because the neglected to take lender fees and closing costs into consideration when they picked a mortgage rate.

Watch out for “Computerized Origination Fees,” as many sites like Lending Tree charge ridiculous fees for filling out a form on their site. Lending Tree is notorious for this and will charge you as much as $1300 while claiming there is no fee to you for their service. The bottom line with online mortgage refinancing is to carefully comparison shop and read all the fine print before you decide on a loan.

Because you can expect to pay a higher interest rate when mortgage refinancing after bankruptcy, it is important to avoid paying any retail markup of this loan. Mortgage companies routinely markup the interest rate you qualify to boost their revenues. This markup by the retail mortgage company is called Yield Spread Premium and results in paying thousands of dollars in unnecessary interest each year.

You will need to spend some time learning about mortgages and researching mortgage lenders. This will allow you to avoid making many of the costly mistakes homeowners make when refinancing their mortgages. Shop from a variety of mortgage lenders and compare interest rates, lender fees and closing costs; by making this comparison from a variety of mortgage lenders you will be able to spot lenders that are trying to take advantage of borrowers with their terms, conditions, and fees.

Tags: Real Estate

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 at 3:03 am and is filed under Real Estate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.