Re: My personal student loan refi experience (SoFi, Serious, CommonBond)

Thanks for sharing. I am inside the an equivalent situation (higher borrowing, prominent is actually around $28k, a beneficial earnings) and you may as you wasn’t obtaining better advertised cost and you may occasionally was not extremely romantic. 25% above their finest stated price.

At this point in time I will wait to your refinancing until 2nd Spring. I can keep making twice repayments to my loan until then.

Re: My education loan refi experience (SoFi, Earnest, CommonBond)

5%), and relatively lower mortgage prominent ($twenty seven.5k), I did not obtain the lower rates stated in the step 3 lenders. Not romantic, in fact.

I started my search at WCI because, frankly, Jim is the best at keeping us updated on the student loan refi climate. From his May 13th blog post about 3 reviews of Credible, we have the following players and bonuses:
CommonBond – $300
LendKey – $300
Credible – $100
Earnest – $300
SoFi – $200
LinkCapital – $100
DRB – $300
First Republic Bank – $200

I knocked out Credible because I don’t like aggregators of financial information on principle. LinkCapital has a relatively low bonus and relatively high minimum rates. First Republic does not lend in my area. I don’t like the poor online presence of DRB, and reviews of LendKey turned me off. So, after some googling and creative URL guessing to find higher bonuses, I landed on this priority, all offering 5-year variable rates around 2.14%:
SoFi – $500
Earnest – $500
CommonBond – $300 (WCI has the best bonus here)
then, if none of those offer good rates,
DRB – $500
LendKey – $250

SoFi’s pre-approval software was obvious and you may to the point in just step 3 screens. On pointless is We concerned about a painful remove. Finally, they said 4.315. I found myself floored. Perchance you you would like $150k+ earnings for the right prices?

Serious got an even convenient pre-approval process, one screen. Yet ,, however providing as much as cuatro.2% compared to that essentially chance-100 % free borrower.

(Sidebar, I actually do ask yourself a little while whether SoFi and you may Earnest cannot provide their weblink very best prices to people using $500 incentive links.)

CommonBond have a slippery interface, however, one or two dozen microsoft windows to their software. The latest line between softer and hard remove is not at all Obvious. Looking back, I don’t think you can purchase a performance off CommonBond rather than a painful remove. Nevertheless, it given step three.93 for 5 seasons changeable and you can 3.91 to possess 7 12 months variable. We really question DRB perform somewhat better than these types of 3 guys, and that i don’t have thirty days to attend and discover from them, thus i made a decision to simply carry on with CommonBond because they curently have my personal difficult pull.

I am to buy a property next year, very thought meticulously from the DTI (and you may considering the lower rates. ), I decided to pick the fresh new eight 12 months. I won’t hold which financing to title. I plan to re-refi that have SoFi the following year to get the $500, following maybe do it once more that have Serious for their $five hundred prior to ultimately settling the mortgage.

I experienced to help you email address CommonBond solution to alter my app out of 5 in order to seven year, but which had been quick and easy, even along the weekend. I submitted dos spend stubs and you will incentives files easily. Was required to current email address her or him fee addresses. And questioned him or her throughout the including an excellent cosigner to reduce the speed, however, I do believe simply SoFi really does one.

So, that’s where I am now. I will update as things progress. Hopefully this helps get the word out that even a good Boglehead who significantly LBYMs is not guaranteed the lowest student loan refi rates.