I really appreciate everyone sharing their experiences on this thread, after reading a few other sources and forums I finally just refinanced my student loans! For over 5 years I've been carrying over $100k in loans with interest rates ranging from 4.25% - 8.5%. The 8.5% loan was a private loan, which I paid off last month (I prefer the avalanche method over snowball - it seems to me snowball only makes sense if you're struggling with motivation to keep paying as much as you can into the loans, which I don't struggle with – I am very motivated to crush this debt!!).
That left me with just over $92k in loans remaining, all federal, with a weighted average rate of 6.25%. My credit score is 791 and I have a 6-figure income, but from a lender's perspective I probably still look risky because of my debt to income ratio (I have a pretty large mortgage, along with the student loans and a car loan, and I have an alimony payment too). I checked out rates on Credible, and then a week ago I submitted applications to SoFi, CommonBond, LendKey, and Earnest. After reading so much about SoFi on MMM and in the forums, I figured I'd probably go with SoFi, but I wanted to do my due diligence and apply to the others too. I'm glad I did, because here are the fixed rates they all offered for a 7 year payoff:
SoFi: monthly payment $1214.31, interest rate 4.438%
CommonBond: $1208.32, 4.54%
LendKey: $1235.49, 5.10%
Earnest: $1201.55, 4.28%
So I finalized the agreement with Earnest, and had them take over all of my loans except one, the one with a slightly lower rate at 4.25%. Those points add up, after all.
The application process with all of the lenders was super smooth, overall I think I'd be happy working with any of these companies if they offered the best rate (and I intend to check again every 6-9 months from now on). One detail worth noting is that CommonBond took 6 days to review and approve my application, which seemed like a long time. The other lenders all gave approval within hours, and I signed the agreement with Earnest by the end of the day, same day I submitted my application.
I used
@djballer's referral link, and if anybody wants to use mine, please do! I would really appreciate it!
Earnest referral link:
https://www.earnest.com/invite/brandy567 (we each get $200)
SoFi referral link: sofi.com/share/2794324
CommonBond referral link:
https://commonbond.co/?referrer=sHf10eGsCACP9ebS6Z5C9C5H1UW_W5vtkP4Sa102hSK2lcOlHaPpAV6VUKjWVOi5