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The Offer
Direct Link to offer (I believe this will work for any Ally Bank deposit customer)
- Buy or refi with Ally Home Loans, and you’ll receive a $1,500 cash bonus.
The Fine Print
- Requires enrollment by 4/17/23.
- Loan application must be submitted by 4/17/23.
- Bonus will be paid within 30 days of your closing date.
- Presumably you’ll get a 1099 for the bonus and will have to pay taxes on it.
Our Verdict
This offer is being sent out via email to Ally customers. Based on the fine print, I believe the link would work for any Ally Bank deposit customer ( checking, savings, or CD account). Just be sure to use the same email address for your Ally Bank account, your enrollment, and your mortgage application.
This is a nice deal for someone who wants to get a mortgage or refinance with Ally. I have no idea if Ally’s rates are competitive, please do your own research.
Shockingly, something like 70%+ of homeowners failed to refinance their 5%+ pre-pandemic home loans when they had the chance during the Fed’s effectively-negative interest rate cycle. That was as of Q3 2021 when refi rates were rock bottom.
Being able to borrow a quarter to half a million dollars at 2.x% over 15-30 years AND getting cash out was an absolutely insane once-a-generation or less macroeconomic event that millions of people missed.
Currently, we are getting PAID for having taken significant cash out at 2.5% and banking it risk-free at 4-9% depending on the instrument.
Except, the risk free investment wasn’t yielding 4-9% when mortgage rates were 2.5%. Hindsight 20/20
No doubt, and a fair point. However, SOME cycle of rate increase from that historic bottom was inevitable, and even if modest, the sub-inflation rates of 2.x% essentially act as negative rates. The time frame is another factor as one could (though shouldn’t) invest the cash-out in risk assets over a 15-30 year timeline and very likely be quite fine.
I’ve always thought mortgage bonuses (whether new or refi) are rarely worth it. There’s so much other variability in the cost of buying/refing (rates, closing costs, buying/selling points) that it’s impossible to take a bonus at face value.
In this market, unless you buy near the top (recently 7%) it makes NO sense to refi. Most people already refi’d, already had a mortgage sub 5%, or just don’t care/lazy/don’t understand.
Essentially, if the rates suddenly drop to sub 5% and this style offer still is around… yes. It likely makes a lot more sense to consider it.
I did several refinances with Better when they ran Amex $2,500 or $3,000 promos and those were great deals because Better was really competitive and would match or beat competing offers. DoC had a full article on it. I doubt anyone that has refinanced before last year will be refinancing anytime soon.
I really do miss that train. The people who were able to take advantage of Better and really milk the system, made out like crazy. I probably profited close to $10K over 4 refinances.
YMMV, but I’ve refinanced three times with Citibank and Chase. Every time, they were willing to match or beat my best competing offer, and I was still able to stack the bonuses on top of that.
Citi’s bonus is a % off of your rate (from 0.125% to 0.625% off depending on how much in assets you’re willing to transfer over). So they’d match another lender’s rate, fees, etc. and then I’d stack another % rate discount *on top* of that.
And if you’re transferring a brokerage account, you get the brokerage bonus too.