Refinancing

Heather and I have been considering refinancing our house but found that the fees of our current lender, HSBC were higher than we had though they would be ($2200). The first thing I did to see if refinancing made sense was to try the Bankrate.com refinancing calculator. Well, this calculator bases whether it makes sense on how much you would save on your monthly payment...not how much you pay monthly or when you will pay off you house and how much you will actually save. I thought this calculator was useful for someone planning to go to full term on their loan, but not someone that is looking to pay off the loan early. So, I had to go to Excel and adjust my amortization to change the rates, payment levels, and either have the new rate or the current rate plus $2200 paid immediately..plus calculate tax advantages of the different rates. What a pain, I may just have to write a web application to do this for people. In the end, $2200 paid immediately for us was a better fit rather than refinancing.