[psunavy03]

No, this poster is not correct. You CAN refinance for another 30-year note, or a 15-year note, or a 10-year note, or whatever the bank will let you refinance for and you're willing to sign up for.

All you're doing is taking out another loan and using that loan to pay off the original loan. So whatever terms you can get from the bank are fair game.

Also, there's nothing stopping you from paying the loan off early.

[D13Fd]

Refinancing has a significant cost though. The various fees and transaction costs add up to $10-20k+ in my experience. Is not at all free, unless the savings from the difference in interest rate exceeds the transaction cost.

[gambiting]

Interesting. Here in UK there are usually literally no costs to remortgaging, we've remortgaged couple years ago and only cost was paying £500 for a solicitor to look throught he paperwork(which we convinced the bank to pay for in the end, so it cost us nothing overall).

[psunavy03]

A refi over here is treated cost-wise exactly like taking out a new mortgage, which you then use to pay off the first mortgage.

[gambiting]

Same here. There are no fees(usually) for taking a new mortgage either. A bank might charge you something for making the transfer, but it's like £50, completely insignificant.