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Real Estate vocabulary · Mortgages & Financing

Refinance

Meaning in real estate, with examples

/ˌriːˈfaɪnæns/verbCommon term

In real estate, refinance means: To replace an existing mortgage with a new one, usually to get a lower interest rate, change the term or borrow extra money against the property.

In Turkish: refinansman yapmak, krediyi yenilemek, krediyi yeniden yapılandırmak

How it is used

American English; British owners usually say remortgage. Homeowners tend to refinance when rates fall, but refinancing has its own costs, so people compare the savings with the fees. Often shortened to refi in US speech.

Example sentences

  1. We refinanced last year and cut our monthly payment by 300 dollars.

  2. Many owners rushed to refinance when rates dropped.

Common collocations

  • refinance a mortgage
  • cash-out refinance
  • refinance at a lower rate
  • remortgage (UK)
  • mortgageA long-term loan used to buy a property, in which the property itself serves as security for the lender until the loan is paid back.
  • interest rateThe percentage a lender charges for borrowing money, which decides how much a mortgage costs on top of the amount borrowed.
  • equityThe part of a property's value that the owner truly owns: its current market value minus whatever is still owed on the mortgage.
  • fixed-rate mortgageA home loan whose interest rate stays the same for an agreed period or for the whole loan, so the monthly payment does not change.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Mortgages & Financing

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