Want to refinance your house? Keep these two points in mind

There’s two major factors you should consider when deciding whether or not to refinance your house: interest rates and home appreciation, said financial advisor Winnie Sun.

If your house’s value has soared significantly but interest rates are up from when you first moved in, she said, you might want to hold off. “It may not make sense for you to refinance,” added Sun, founder of Sun Group Wealth Partners.

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However, some people might see their appreciated house as an opportunity should they need to inject some cash into their budget, she said. “Those are discussions you want to take some time to really do some soul-searching and think about,” Sun said.

Refinancing your house creates a new mortgage that either redoes or replaces the original one, Sun said.

“One of the main reasons people refinance their homes is because interests rates have gone down and they want to get their payments down,” she said. If your house has become more valuable and you can jump on a lower interest rate, it’s a “win-win,” according to Sun.

Even when rates are low, people shouldn’t borrow more than they need, she said. Some people may argue that if they pull out more mortgage money, they can invest it and potentially earn 8 percent or 10 percent returns, compared with only 3 percent to 4 percent on their house.

“That’s not really a great idea,” Sun said, adding, “The stock market as we know can be unpredictable. We don’t want to risk our home.”