I've written here about my mortgage troubles with the bank I refinanced with last year. It was not a good experience at all and has continued to suck even a year later with their refusal to drop PMI, etc.

Since my taxes for this year are filed and I now have two years of adequate income in self-employment to show, I started the process to refinance my home.  I contacted my sister's mortgage person and right off the bat this person is about a million times better than the previous one. It's with USBank with whom I have been since 2004, and I trust them. And the mortgage officer is incredibly responsive and helpful.

I already have a small amount of savings - the mortgage officer ran my home value through the automated system and it came back at around what the Zillow estimate is, so I do not need to do an appraisal since my loan amount is less than 78% of the home value. That is $575 in savings right there! Not to mention that I will not have to pay PMI, which will be an additional $39.95 saved each month. 

Yet again confirmation that I needed to leave the old awful bank I have the mortgage with. My current mortgage lender refused to run an automated appraisal for me and insisted that I would have to pay for a new appraisal. Furthermore, regardless of the appraised value, they insisted that I would have to continue to pay PMI for the next two years despite my having ~29% equity in my home. Screw them! I can't wait to be done with them.

I'm refinancing for a 15-year loan term. 2.75%