Dear Friends, I have been reading stuff in this forum for three years and still learning. I got our home loan refinanced this month with a major bank, but not satisfied with the results. I now present our case below and welcome your comments.
Home loan #1
In 2009, purchased a house (our main residence) at a price of $565k, with a loan of $430k. In February 2015 , we have the following numbers for the mortgage account:
Balance = -$52k, available fund = $312k.
That is, we may pay off the mortgage by adding about $52k, or keep the account and buy an investment property using the available fun of $312k.
In early March 2015, I was interested in a unit with a price of ~$460k. I went to the bank and asked for an investment loan of $630k: $400 (standard account) + 23k (offset account). I also mentioned to the bank staff, the price of my house is now about $650k. I was thinking to use our main residence as security and do not need pay the 20% deposit. The bank staff told me that they need use about 50k fund from account #1 because they can only lend me 80% of value of the house + unit.
The refinanced home loan results are:
(Modified) New home loan = $250k, based on an updated house price of $650k
Available fund = ~$150k.
Therefore, the available fund in Account #1 reduced from $312k to $150k: about $160k was used to get the investment loan of $630k, with the main residence as the security. I suspect that they used the new price $650k of main residence in the debt calculation.
My questions:
1. Even without refinance, I can use $160k from Account #1 as 20% deposit to get a $630k loan independently, what is the benefit of using the main residence as security?
2. The bank used $650k as new value of the main residence, is it a bit arbitrary? Should they put the difference between $650k and original price $565k (~$85k) as (increased) available fund in Account #1? Where did they put this ~$85k (increased house value)?
3. I talked to the bank staff, here is their response:
? I did explain to you when the loan was restructured in February why we had to reduce the available equity. Your property was valued by our system at $650K and the purchase price for your unit was $459,950K. We can lend a maximum of 80% for the two properties. 80% equals $887K. You requested $630K for the new Investment loan which left $257K available for the Home Loan.?
I indicated to the bank that I am not happy with these results. I want to restore the old home loan, then I can use $160k (from available fund $312k) as %20 deposit to get $630k investment loan and keep two unlinked, because I do not see any benefit from this refinance. In addition, the house value increased form $565k to $650k, but I did not see any benefit of this increase in the refinanced results. Do I miss something?
Any comments are welcome.
Home loan #1
In 2009, purchased a house (our main residence) at a price of $565k, with a loan of $430k. In February 2015 , we have the following numbers for the mortgage account:
Balance = -$52k, available fund = $312k.
That is, we may pay off the mortgage by adding about $52k, or keep the account and buy an investment property using the available fun of $312k.
In early March 2015, I was interested in a unit with a price of ~$460k. I went to the bank and asked for an investment loan of $630k: $400 (standard account) + 23k (offset account). I also mentioned to the bank staff, the price of my house is now about $650k. I was thinking to use our main residence as security and do not need pay the 20% deposit. The bank staff told me that they need use about 50k fund from account #1 because they can only lend me 80% of value of the house + unit.
The refinanced home loan results are:
(Modified) New home loan = $250k, based on an updated house price of $650k
Available fund = ~$150k.
Therefore, the available fund in Account #1 reduced from $312k to $150k: about $160k was used to get the investment loan of $630k, with the main residence as the security. I suspect that they used the new price $650k of main residence in the debt calculation.
My questions:
1. Even without refinance, I can use $160k from Account #1 as 20% deposit to get a $630k loan independently, what is the benefit of using the main residence as security?
2. The bank used $650k as new value of the main residence, is it a bit arbitrary? Should they put the difference between $650k and original price $565k (~$85k) as (increased) available fund in Account #1? Where did they put this ~$85k (increased house value)?
3. I talked to the bank staff, here is their response:
? I did explain to you when the loan was restructured in February why we had to reduce the available equity. Your property was valued by our system at $650K and the purchase price for your unit was $459,950K. We can lend a maximum of 80% for the two properties. 80% equals $887K. You requested $630K for the new Investment loan which left $257K available for the Home Loan.?
I indicated to the bank that I am not happy with these results. I want to restore the old home loan, then I can use $160k (from available fund $312k) as %20 deposit to get $630k investment loan and keep two unlinked, because I do not see any benefit from this refinance. In addition, the house value increased form $565k to $650k, but I did not see any benefit of this increase in the refinanced results. Do I miss something?
Any comments are welcome.