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Advice on refinancing is easy enough to find - the question you need to ask yourself is whether the advice you find is worth the paper it is printed on - and when you are finding refinancing advice online, that’s very little paper indeed! You need to be very careful who you trust when it comes to advice on refinancing.

Mortgage lenders want your business. If you are not a customer today, but they can persuade you to refinance your home, then they can have you as a customer tomorrow. These financial organisations are not charities - they make a good profit from you over the life of your mortgage. So much profit that it is worth their while to pay hundreds of dollars in commissions to mortgage brokers who sign up new customers for them.

In fact, these mortgage lenders are so keen to find new borrowers that they will pay up to a hundred dollars just for a lead - the name, address, and some basic financial details of a mortgage-holder who might possibly be thinking about refinancing. Taking advice on refinancing from mortgage lenders is like taking advice on smoking from a cigarette company.

Mortgage brokers are no better. If you don’t refinance your home, they don’t get paid. Advice on refinancing from someone with a vested interest is never going to be impartial.

Even with the very best and purest intentions, mortgage lenders and mortgage brokers cannot help exaggerating the benefits and playing down the risks of refinancing your mortgage.

You need to consult independent authorities to be sure you are getting independent advice on refinancing. The problem is tracking down independent authorities in the first place. Start with the government web sites, and general educational web sites that don’t belong to a financial institution. Avoid web sites which ask you to fill in long and complicated forms to obtain the information you are seeking.

In some areas, you can find a consumer guide to refinancing, specifically produced by a consumer watchdog or consumer advocacy service to help protect you from the predatory behavior of some mortgage lenders and mortgage brokers. Time and experience will eventually sort out the mess that is the current US housing finance marketplace, but you can keep yourself from being draggged down by it, by doing some simple checking before making any commitment to a mortgage lender.

It is very important to get advice on refinancing before you take a step that could be one of the major financial decisions of your life. Make sure it is the right advice, and comes from an unbiased source.