There are a variety of reasons to refinance your home:

Rate and term, lowering your rate or shortening the term of your existing loan amount is called rate and term.

Refinancing your home should consider factors other than reducing your payment or interest rate. Sometimes even if you lower your payment, you might spend a lot more over the term of your loan than if you never refinanced. If you refinance to reduce your rate, you should be able to make up the cost of refinancing in less than one year.

Debt consolidation, turning the equity in your home into cash to pay off credit cards, car loans or medical bills is called debt consolidation. Paying off credit cards to improve cash flow can significantly impact quality of life. We don't generally recommend using equity in your home to pay off car loans and other term loans because you could be turning a 3 to 5 year car payment into 30 year debt.

Spousal Buyout, or refinancing to take an ex-spouse off of the deed and mortgage to satisfy a settlement agreement.

College Tuition, or refinancing to use the equity in your home to pay for your children's college education. Mortgage interest rates are generally lower than student loan interest rates.

Family Conveyances, to resolve estate situations or transfer the family home from one generation to the next are called family conveyances. Many times one heir of an estate would like to keep the real estate while the other heirs want the cash. Refinancing to pay off your fellow heirs can resolve the situation. Parents or grandparents may want to transfer their home to the children or grandchildren for estate purposes. With a refinance, the parents can take the equity from their home while keeping it in the family with little or no out of pocket expense to the children.