Refinancing your home loan in Texas (Home equity HELOC)

November 25, 2007

Refinancing your home loan in Texas, especially cash out (home equity) refinances,  is harder than in other states.  For example, when doing a Texas cash out refinance (home equity loan) there are several legal limitations:

1) The total fees can exceed 3% of the loan amount.   This rule makes it harder to do smaller loan refinances.  For example, if you live in smaller home ($75,000-100,000) your total fees can’t go over 3%.  This means when you add up all the fees:  underwriting, title policy, escrow fees, lender fees–they can’t exceed 3%.   

2) You must wait around 15 days to close your loan and then 3 business days to actually get your money.

3) Your home equity loan can’t exceed 80% of your home’s value.  There are some exceptions  to this rule, like when a couple is getting a divorce and needs to split the home’s equity,  but this 80% rule makes it harder for people to access their hard-earn equity.   

Of course, when you just want to do a simple refinance (without receiving cash) you don’t have the cash-out limitations.  Let’s say you’re on an ARM and want to refi to a fixed rate.   This is relatively straight forward process.   We simple refinance your old loan to a fixed rate loan.   One just needs to look at the over all benefit of the refinance since all loans have fees associated with them.   

Jon Spears, Broker #56651

512-996-8194

512-577-2958

 www.mylendingplace.com

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