Home owners can trim their monthly mortgage payments by “recasting” or “re-amortizing” their loan, without having to refinance and face hefty closing cost fees, experts say.

When recasting, the borrower pays off a lump sum of the loan’s principal and then resets monthly payments at the loan’s original interest rate and terms.

Since borrowers are not asking for a new loan, they will not have to pay closing costs or submit to another credit check. (Note: “Recasting” is often used in the mortgage industry to refer to interest rate resets on adjustable-rate mortgages. In this case, the interest rate and loan term remain the same. )

“People don’t really know about it, but it’s become more common recently,” Alan Rosenbaum, founder and chief executive of the Guardhill Financial Corporation in New York, said about recasting.

Borrowers who just make extra payments toward the loan’s principal but do not ask the bank to recast the loan will keep monthly payments the same and just shorten the overall time it takes to pay off the loan. Recasting, on the other hand, reduces the principal but then, in turn, lowers monthly payments and interest over the life of the loan.

Source: http://www.realtor.org/RMODaily.nsf/pages/News2011010504?OpenDocument