opinions/experience with the "easy orange mortgage" through ING?

[lmh2402]

we're already prequaled for an ample traditional 30 year mortgage

but DH is thinking this might be a great deal

anyway, has anyone used this product? is it worth exploring / applying for?

[LMPC]

I have several friends who bank with ING...I am not sure they had a mortgage thru them, but they all looooved banking with them. HTH a little.

[lmh2402]

thanks!

we have accounts through ING too...they used to have kick-butt interest rates...though not so great anymore

anyway, thanks for your feedback

[lmh2402]

bumping...

DH called them tonight and we were automatically approved

so now we've got access to it...question, of course, is whether it's a smart move

[jenfromnj]

It may have changed since we were looking, but at the time, they only offered adjustable rate mortgages, and jumbos required a min of 30% or 35% down. If their offerings meet your needs, I wouldn't hesitate to use them (based upon my experience with their savings and investment products, and close friends who have ARMs with them)--I do love their customer service, it's much better than I'd expect from an online-only outfit.

[dhano923]

It may have changed since we were looking, but at the time, they only offered adjustable rate mortgages, and jumbos required a min of 30% or 35% down. If their offerings meet your needs, I wouldn't hesitate to use them (based upon my experience with their savings and investment products, and close friends who have ARMs with them)--I do love their customer service, it's much better than I'd expect from an online-only outfit.

:yeahthat:

We bought our house last August and I looked into ING but they only offered ARMs or a traditional jumbo (which is what we were looking at) with 30% down.

[lmh2402]

it's a 5 year fixed rate PNI that allows you to extend for an additional 5 years after the first six months

the catch being that if/when you extend, the mortgage only goes for an additional 5 years... so if you decided after to extend 1 year in, your mortgage would only go for another five years

you could ride the 5 years out and then lock in for an additional 5 years at whatever the current rate is at that time

for right now, the rate is super low! 3.75

we're already prequaled for a traditional 30 year mortgage

but DH is thinking this might be a great deal

however, who knows where rates will be in 5 years...and then where they would be in 10 years, but the principal would have paid down over the previous 10 years...

plus, b/c of the way the payment structure works - you pay every two weeks, rather than once a month - you end up paying one extra payment a year b/c of how the calendar works...so you theoretically pay your interest down a bit "faster" than you would in a traditional mortgage

i don't know... we're now qualified for both the traditional and the easy orange

i told dh he needs to find a way to project amortization (realizing it's all a crap shoot) for hypoethical reset rates for 5 and 10 years out

and then compare the total costs at the end of 30 years vs. a traditional 30 year mortgage

so...what do you think?

[wellyes]

A 5 year mortgage? That's wacky. Unless you're not planning on staying in the house very long I don't know about that one. Paying the fees for this mortgages plus the fees for a new mortgage in 5 years potentially won't save you much. Even a refi cost $2000. No way would I expect to get the same mortgage lender next time, I've had 4 mortgages so far and always a new provider since you do go with the lowest rate you can.

3.75% is a great rate but http://www.bankrate.com/mortgage.aspx says the average rate for a 30 year fixed is under 5.5% which is still very very good.

[KrisM]

What is the rate you'd have on a traditional 30 year mortgage?

Does paying every 2 weeks work for you? We get paid twice a month, so paying every 2 weeks would mean a couple times a year I'd have 2 payments out of one check. You can always add 1/12 of a payment to each monthly on a regular mortgage.

ETA: Got interrupted :).

I also think that if you plan on being there more than 5 years, taking such a short mortgage is risky. What if rates are 10% in 5 years? If you refinance to another company in 5 years, do you really want to start over at a 30 year mortgage?

[dukie41181]

What is the 30 year fixed rate you have been prequalified for?

[lmh2402]

our plan would definitely be to stay in the home longer than 5 years, so we would be refinancing

if we went the full five years, we would then have the ability to shift into the next five years at whatever the new rate is (understanding there isn't a chance it would be as low as 3.75%, but it would be at no cost)

i don't know...

the rate we're looking at for a 30yr fixed is approximately 5.38%

my vote is the 30yr fixed b/c i like things neat & clean

DH likes to...not think things through and live "on the edge"

he's going to run an amortization schedule today to see what the difference in paid down principal would be between the two after five years...and see if that makes one seem more sensible than the other

thanks for your perspective!

ETA: DH says the 5.38% 30 year rate is a guess, since the rates float every day based on what the treasury is doing, etc. he said they will creep up, and then back, and then up again, etc... he says we are in the mix for the lowest rate possible, it's just a matter of what that rate would be at the time that we were locking a mortgage for a purchase... so guess there is no way to exactly know the rate right now

[Melbel]

If there was ANY chance I would be in the home more than 5 years, I would not not go with the ING option. The 30 year fixed rates are still at a historically low level. Interest rates are expected to climb significantly from what I have read. We are pretty fiscally conservative, and would not be willing to absorb the risk in a 5 year rate. Of course, your risk tolerance and personal situation may vary. I think it is a good idea to run the numbers under different scenarios.

ETA: We were cross posting. I would shop around for better rates for the 30 year fixed. Some lenders allow a 1x float down option if the rates go down. In early March, the rates were under 5%, so there has been a fair amount of fluctuation. No offense to your DH intended, but IMO the living "on the edge" mentality played a large part in the implosion of the housing market. We are all paying for those who took risks that did not pay off.

[dukie41181]

My husband is in the mortgage field and his company has rates as low as 4.83% on a 30 year fixed. He's been in the field for the past 6/7 years and is a really good, honest guy. If you'd like his contact info., PM me and I'm happy to send it along.

Good luck in this process! It can be so confusing and tough to make great choices!

[squimp]

I don't know about that specific mortgage, but it sounds like the ARM mortgages. I have seen those be a good idea if the interest rates are high - basically gives you the opportunity to get a better interest rate in a few years. But rates are pretty low right now. What if the rates are 7% in 5 years? Make sure you include that in your calculations.

[jenfromnj]

We had looked into the ING options when buying our current house, and DH was a bit more willing to go for it than I was. We ultimately decided on a 30-year fixed, based mainly upon the fact that traditional (even jumbo) mortgage rates are really quite low right now, historically speaking (we're at 5% or 5.125%)--I was really concerned about where rates would be when it came time to refi. (To that end, it might be worth looking closely at what the prepayment terms are, if rates start to go up and you decide you'd like to refi before the 5 years--we didn't get to that point with ING, so I'm not sure about that.)

Of course there's no way to accurately predict the future, but for us, a just over 1 percent rate savings for 5 years was not worth the risk, especially once we factored in the potential expenses of refinancing. Of course, if you will be aggressively paying down the principal over the next 5 years and will have substantially less to refi when the time comes, that's a different story. But in our case, I really like the security of knowing that our payments (not including taxes, of course, but that's another story) will never go up.

[AnnieW625]

I think that 5.38% is great for a 30 yr. fixed rate mortgage. I would just go with that.

ETA: FWIW we have a 5/1 ARM with a 5.25% interest rate and it's the only part of our home that I really regret having, but in 2005 like the rest of the home buying population that's what was offered to us and we got all caught up in the excitement of buying a home. We have to refinance here pretty soon as our loan we will get one more year of fixed rate interest rate (that will be determined in May for our June 1st payment) before it goes 100% adjustable in 2011. Long story short I wish we would've just rented and waited out the market so we could get a good 30 yr. fixed loan, but like I said the excitement of buying a home overshadowed that. Good luck!

[vonfirmath]

I wouldn't do a 5-year mortgage such that everything is due after those 5 years. What if, 5 years down the road, you are not in shape to get another loan?