For most, the biggest investment you'll ever make is buying a home; it's also one of the most complex financial arrangements you'll ever make. You've seen the commercials with the gigantic pile of paperwork – not far from the truth, in some deals.

 The answer to this is a good solid, "Maybe." It depends on your situation. Do you have some of the situations described above? Then you should consider it. If you don't see any way to save money with a refinance, then it's probably not a great idea

There are a lot of things that you should do when you refinance, but there are only a few rules for things you should not do that you really need to remember.

Jumbo Loans, Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM), Fixed Rate Mortgage, Interest Only Loan, VA Loan, 125% Mortgage.

Your loan documents will be slightly different depending on whether you're buying or refinancing a loan, or applying for a home equity loan.

Home equity loans and lines of credit are a special type of credit based on the equity you own in your home. Home equity can be treated like loans or like regular lines of credit, but you should remember that when you use them, that's counting against the part of your home that you own.

Once upon a time, homeowners lived in the dark woods of Expensive Loans, and the Fairy Godparents of Loan Refinancing all advised them to wait until average loan points dropped at least 2% before refinancing anything, because between points and fees anything less than that would be eaten up before the decreased interest rate helped the homeowner save money.

But then something magical happened. The zero-point/zero-fee loan was invented.

Fair Isaac & Company developed their own scoring method to determine the likelihood that credit users would pay their bills back in the Wild West days of credit, the 1950s.

A pre-qualification is a statement issued by a loan officer. He interviews you, reviews your credit history and other factors that are used to determine your eligibility for a loan, and tells you what size of loan you can be approved for if you want to buy a home.

Most consumers don't understand the admittedly byzantine convolutions of the way mortgage rates are calculated. The first thing you must understand is that there are many different interest rates that together affect your overall mortgage rate, including the following:

If your lender goes out of business or just decides he'd rather have cash for your loan than the loan itself, he can sell it at any time. The secondary mortgage market is very strong, and it's quite common for pools of mortgages to be sold.