Renewing my Mortgage

I recently renewed my mortgage. The bank sent me a helpful set of papers. Essentially, all I had to do was select the term, sign the bottom and pop in the mail. Easy, right? But it would have been a big mistake.

I looked at the interest rate for the term I was interested in, and compared it to the information the bank had on their website. Their website listed a "Best Rate" that was 0.71% less than the renew by mail rate.

So I thought perhaps there were some restrictions on the "Best Rate", but I wondered if I could still knock down the renew by mail rate. After all, what did I have to lose except a couple of minutes to make a phone call.

I phoned the bank, told them my mortgage with them was coming due, and told them I was shopping around for rates. What rate could they give me? They came back with a rate that was 1.35% better than the renew by mail rate, and 0.44% better than their "best rate".

Now remember, I didn't do a lot of heavy negotiating. I didn't shop around to a million other places. I didn't need to move my accounts to another bank. I just made a phone call instead of blindly mailing in a form.