As of Monday, June 11, refinancing FHA mortgages through the government's streamline program will become more affordable in New York.
"This is a special program that the President has rolled out and the government has rolled out. They're reducing the monthly mortgage insurance and the up front mortgage insurance. Which is great, because those costs have gone up significantly in the last couple of years," said Jim Cardinal, Syracuse Securities Loan Officer.
According to Cardinal, it is other fees that made it harder for consumers with FHA mortgages to take advantage of historically low interest rates.
"It's not for all applicants. It's actually for folks that have an FHA loan that was insured by FHA in June 2009 or before," said Cardinal. "There are certain times when it doesn't make sense to refinance.”
“If you're thinking you're going to leave the house in a real short period of time like one to two years, you really need to look at the costs associated with it. Whether you're rolling in the closing costs or paying them out of pocket, you may not be in the house long enough to see the benefit of that refinance, he added.
"When we saw this program coming out we were pretty excited about it. We tempered our excitement because we thought interest rates were going to go up. But that hasn't happened. Rates are actually even lower than before," Cardinal said. "We're really going to be able to help a lot of people reduce their debt and reduce their interest rates on their current mortgage.”