Redfin: 20% of Homeowners With a Mortgage Could Save Money by Refinancing

(Image courtesy of David McElwee/pexels.com)

Redfin, Seattle, released a new report finding that 19.8% of homeowners with a mortgage could save money by refinancing. That’s up from 7% this time last year.

Redfin defines a homeowner as “in the money” if their current mortgage rate is at least 50 basis points above the prevailing mortgage rate. The analysis is based on a 6.08% mortgage rate, the average so far in 2026 as of early March.

However, only 9.1% of eligible homeowners who could save money by refinancing to current average rates have done so in Q1. That’s the lowest percentage of homeowners who could benefit from refinancing but haven’t done so since early 2020.

In Q1, homeowners refinanced an estimated $223 billion in home loans in Q1. But, they could have refinanced $2.24 trillion in home loans–based on the 90.9% in-the-money homeowners who didn’t refinance.

Only 1.8% of all mortgaged homeowners overall in the U.S. have refinanced in Q1.

“For homeowners who are in the money, refinancing now could meaningfully lower monthly payments and total interest costs over the life of the home loan,” said Bill Banfield, chief business officer at Rocket, Redfin’s parent company. “Even a modest rate reduction can add up to big savings, helping free up cash, build equity faster or better weather future financial uncertainty. Homeowners may also consider whether refinancing could have advantages other than putting money back in their pocketbooks every month. For instance, they could consider consolidating debt or changing their loan type. Some people take advantage of lower rates to change the length of their loan and pay it off faster while keeping essentially the same monthly payment.”