How long it takes to get the closing costs back
A lower payment is not a saving until the costs of getting it are paid back. This refinance break-even calculator works out the month that happens, and sets what the new loan costs in interest over its whole life against what the loan you have has left.
Refinance break-even
What that works out to
- Payment on your current loan
- Needs your current rate
- Payment on the new loan
- Needs the new rate
- Difference each month
- Needs both rates
- Closing costs paid back in
- Needs both rates
- Interest left on your current loan
- Needs your current rate
- Interest over the life of the new loan
- Needs the new rate
- Difference over the life of the loans
- Needs both rates
Enter the rate you have been quoted and the numbers appear. We do not publish rates.
These are estimates from the figures you entered, not a quote, an offer, or a commitment to lend.
A calculator works from the figures you typed into it. Your loan officer works from your file and your credit, against the lenders on our panel.
Ask us for a real quoteHow the math works
The new loan replaces the balance you owe today, so the comparison is against the time you have left on the loan you have, not against the note you signed years ago.
Each payment comes from the same amortization formula: one at your current rate over the time remaining, one at the new rate over the new term.
The gap between those two payments is the monthly saving. The closing costs divided by that saving, rounded up to the next whole month, is the break-even. If the new payment is not lower there is no saving to divide into, and the calculator says the costs are never recovered instead of printing a figure.
Interest over the life of each loan is read off its own schedule rather than estimated.
Starting assumptions
No tax, homeowners insurance or dues figures here: they are the same before and after a refinance, so they cancel out of the comparison. Mortgage insurance, which can change, is left out too. The figures it opens on are round starting points, and every one of them is yours to change.
These are estimates from the figures you entered, not a quote, an offer, or a commitment to lend.
Pick the question you are trying to answer
- Monthly payment
What leaves your account each month once taxes, insurance and dues are inside the figure.
- Affordability
What your income carries once your debts, the taxes and the insurance come out of it.
- Amortization schedule
Every payment, split into interest and principal, year by year.
A quote needs your file
Send us what you are working with, and your loan officer can price it against the lenders on our panel.
No credit pull to get started. This is not a commitment to lend. Equal Housing Opportunity.