ideas how to reduce mortgage payment w/o refinancing?

What is your current interest rate?

If your new loan is at a higher rate, you will lose financially.

Are you willing to sell your house and rent or buy a smaller house?

If you refinance, I think a larger loan could be used to increase your cash position.

-- Ron

You could refinance just the balance at your local credit union instead of the bank. I checked my credit union's rate just now - on a

15 year fixed, it is 3.125% with no points, which is much better than their HELOC rate.

OP never mentioned his current rate. When I talk to people with 10 years left, but at 7%, I remark that at 4% or less, the 3% savings would pay for some closing costs in a few months depending on balance. Many banks have a low or no closing cost mortgage at a slightly higher rate. It's easy math when you have all the numbers.

Go to your current mortgage holder, tell them you are considering closing out the loan and ask them to instead reduce your current rate by say 2 points.

It's still a refinancing but I have seen ING Direct advertise "low closing costs" mortgages where they claim savings by not paying at least part of the normal closing costs and points. Their 7/1 ARM is 3.396% APR and, although does not cover the entire 10 yr period you want, it *almost* gets you there. There is some small print there, too, so you'd have to contact them to see if it's really all that great, but sounds pretty good on the ad. I would think the appraisal would not be such a big deal in refinancing, at least as far as you get it appraised at 20% over the amount you borrow to eliminate the PMI insurance costs.

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I would think that by now they have already sold the mortgage higher up the chain and are only involved in servicing it (collecting your payments). In other words, they would love to do something to prevent losing you as a customer but I don't think they can actually do anything about it 'cause it's not even their money anymore.

I'm pretty sure that's how it works with smaller banks but couple years ago I've also attempted to do just what you suggested with Wells Fargo. Despite being one of the few big ones still standing, they simply said: "go ahead". So I did and refinanced with a small local bank.

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