[caption id="attachment_434" align="alignleft" width="259"]mortgage rates mortgage rates[/caption]

In the recent weeks the long-term U.S. treasury rates have gone down and the mortgage rates tend to mirror them.If you think that you should buy a new home or refinance your existing mortgage then here are some good advices about what you can do to make the right choice.

Request a Copy of Your Credit Report

You need to always make sure that your credit history is good before you refinance even due to low mortgage rates.To take the lowest rates you need a FICO score of at least 760 so you can request a credit report and make sure you are eligible for a low rate refinance.

Look for the Best Lender Choice


When you are looking for a mortgage lender is better if you first try to find some local credit union and avoid any big companies which they say they offer low mortgage rates.Now, in our days you can do a very good research by using the Internet and this is simply a great opportunity to see all your available options to take a mortgage.You can always contact more lenders in the same time and see what each of them has to offer.This way you can always reduce your rate percent when you find better offers than the current one.

Research the Costs and the Mortgage Rate


Will the costs associated with refinancing justify the reduced monthly payment? The typical rule-of-thumb is a homeowner should refinance if they can save a full percentage point on their rate.
Anytime a homeowner can save some money from the mortgage rate he tends to use the refinance but they do that without taking into account some very important aspects like how long they will remain in that house, the rate of the annual savings, the interest rate tax deduction changes and others because these will gave them their individual costs of changing the lenders.
Usually in 12 up to 18 months your payment savings for your monthly mortgage should equal the closing costs.