Large student loan refinance

[wildrice]

Anyone have experience with this and can recommend a company to reach out to?

My student loans are hopefully being forgiven soon, but my H has 107k of student loans that have a high interest rate - around 7%, I forget the exact number. He originally thought he would be eligible for forgiveness for working with non-profits, but recently took a job with a for-profit that will hopefully be his employer for at least the next several years. We both just want to get them paid off ASAP but with the current interest rate we're going to be paying over 7k a year just in interest!

I think we'd be looking at a 10-15 year repayment plan. Will we need to go with multiple companies to get a good rate? Can you even refinance with multiple companies?

He has excellent credit and our only other debt is our mortgage.

[Susie]

I did my refi with Earnest.  I've also looked into SoFi, Citizens Bank, and Laurel Road.  Earnest offered me the best terms at the time.  H and I each have a couple separate refi loans with Earnest.

If you have multiple smaller loans with a particular lender, you can choose how many to roll into a single refi loan.  Putting them together simplifies all the tracking, but it does make it harder to snowball.  With Earnest you use a sliding scale of interest rate/term/desired payment to set the terms to what you want.  They have been fine to work with IME.

If you're interested in Earnest, they do a $200 referral bonus for each of the existing customer and the new borrower.  So PM me if you're interested in a referral link!

[wildrice]

Thanks Susie! I may be in touch if we go that route.

I don't think I was super clear in my OP, but his loans are already consolidated into 1 federal loan. They were a bunch of smaller federal loans but since we thought he'd be doing PSLF, we consolidated them a couple of years ago. So I'm not sure but I suspect we might need to find 1 lender to take the whole balance, or perhaps a couple of loans to each do like 55k? Some of the promo rates I've gotten emails about say "for balances up to 75k" so I'm a little nervous.

[Susie]

Gotcha.  I have not tried to refi a six figure amount all at once.  I had aggregate balances well into the $100ks at one time, but not all in one loan.  Hope you are able to find a good fit.

[awkwardpenguin]

Earnest or SoFi seem to be the big ones and I had a good experience with each, but I didn't do a large balance all at once. I'd just apply and see what happens, or call them to find out more.

[brooke77]

I refi’d about $115k a few years ago with Earnest @ 4.5%. SoFi is another popular lender. I played around with numbers (doing half at one lender, half at another). At the time, it didn’t make a difference with the interest rate. FWIW, I was happy with Earnest. I paid my loans off early and had no issues and the website was user friendly.

[awkwardpenguin]

Oh I just wanted to add that Earnest only does individual qualifications while SoFi will co-qualify spouses if you both cosign. For us co-signing got us a lower interest rate, but I do think it counts as "co-mingling" the debt from a "who owns the debt" standpoint. Keeping it entirely in his name is best for you if the loans pre-date the marriage.

[wildrice]

Dec 18, 2021 13:56:47 GMT -5 awkwardpenguin said:

Oh I just wanted to add that Earnest only does individual qualifications while SoFi will co-qualify spouses if you both cosign. For us co-signing got us a lower interest rate, but I do think it counts as "co-mingling" the debt from a "who owns the debt" standpoint. Keeping it entirely in his name is best for you if the loans pre-date the marriage.

Oh dang, this is a tough thing to decide! Adding me would essentially double his income, which would be great from a debt to income ratio perspective. I don't expect to divorce but... you never know what the future brings. I hate to pay literally thousands more per year to insure against that, though! Perhaps we should run the numbers both ways and then see. 

[puppylove64]

Student loans are forgiving if the borrower dies. They would not be your spouse’s liability. I would not co-sign.

I applied with earnest and sofi and probably a feee others. Just go with whoever is the lowest rate. They will all be similar to deal with.

[janegold]

I consolidated and refi'd my law school loans (a mix of federal and private) with Citizen's Bank 7 or 8 years ago. The balance was over $100k at the time, and the rate was also the best of what I had seen at the time. It was the early days of private student loan refinance so things very well may have changed. I paid them off within 5 years of refinancing so I don't have a ton of long-term experience but I have no complaints.

I think Citizen's gave me an extra quarter point reduction in the interest rate to have the loan payments on autopay, and/or to have a Citizen's checking account.  I think I just kept a couple hundred dollars in one.

[simpsongal]

I've always gotten the best rates from Earnest (I have refi'ed my private loans several times, they beat all the other lenders mentioned above). But shop around to compare.

Good luck! You should be able to lock a much lower rate. I had planned on paying my mine off early (I paid the federal ones off years ago), but I locked in a fixed rate loan a little over 2%, so now I'm just treating it like cheap money (our HELOC is variable, so a much higher pay-off priority).

I graduated w/$160K+ and I'm down to about $21K.

[wildrice]

Jan 6, 2022 11:52:50 GMT -5 simpsongal said:

I've always gotten the best rates from Earnest (I have refi'ed my private loans several times, they beat all the other lenders mentioned above). But shop around to compare.

Good luck! You should be able to lock a much lower rate. I had planned on paying my mine off early (I paid the federal ones off years ago), but I locked in a fixed rate loan a little over 2%, so now I'm just treating it like cheap money (our HELOC is variable, so a much higher pay-off priority).

I graduated w/$160K+ and I'm down to about $21K.

Wow, that's really low! Do you know what your repayment timeline is? I don't think realistically we can go with less than 10 years but I'm nervous that the longer payoff ranges will have higher interest rates. 

[simpsongal]

wildrice, it's only 5 years. But I don't *think* the rates were terribly higher at longer payoff timelines. They'll be higher b/c interest rates have ticked up a bit since I refi-ed, but jump on it ASAP b/c the fed signaled they're raising interest rates ~3 times this year.

[lucky3]

My loans are showing up in fed loans! For reference, my last communication was 12/3. I just want to double check. It’s showing only 20 on time payments, the 20 months when payments were stopped. The rest of my payments will populate over time time, right? I graduated and set up a 30 year plan so I’ve never been on an income based repayment.