Locking in your mortgage interest rate is how loan originators guarantee an interest rate. The purpose of the lock is to allow you time to close on the loan at the interest rate you agreed. If you are unable to close before the rate lock expires, the mortgage lender could charge you a higher interest rate for the loan. Here are the basics of mortgage rate locks to protect you when refinancing your mortgage loan.

Wholesales mortgage lenders use a rate sheet listing the current day’s published mortgage interest rate. The day your rate is locked it can only be based on the current day’s interest rate. You can only lock your interest rate from the time this rate sheet is issued each morning until the close of business, which is typically 4pm in the lender’s time zone. The duration of the lock will be specified in your loan documents and must allow you enough time to close on your new mortgage. If your lock expires prior to this you will pay dearly for not closing in time.

Before you agree to a lock period, find out what the loan originator’s time frame is for completing your loan. If it will take 15-20 days to complete, a 30 day interest rate lock will be sufficient. This timeframe assumes there will not be complications when the lender is completing your loan. Locking in the right interest rate is crucial when refinancing your mortgage. The discussions you have with the lender are meaningless until you have that interest rate guaranteed in writing. Interest rates change on a daily basis and that 5% loan interest rate you discussed could easily turn into a 6% mortgage in as little as 72 hours.

Trusting your mortgage representative to do the right thing with your interest rate is a big mistake. Your mortgage originator is only concerned with padding the interest rate with as many points as possible to collect a bonus for Yield Spread Premium or YSP. YSP basically means the more you pay, the more the originator receives as a bonus. This is the bait and switch you hear about with mortgage loans. The longer the mortgage lender can put off guaranteeing you interest rate, the more they can raise it when you are one week away from closing. Would you really forego the closing over a .25% increase in your interest rate? Did you know this .25% means an additional bonus for your mortgage originator of 1% of your loan amount? This is a lot of money changing hands just for overcharging you on your new mortgage loan.

Most homeowners don’t know what the lender is doing; they don’t recognize delay tactics and blindly agree to pay .25% to .50% or more while their loan originator takes advantage of them. If you don’t want to be taken advantage of when refinancing your mortgage loan, register for a free mortgage guidebook.