While locking yourself into a home loan is a big deal, both due to the responsibility you’re taking on and the financial investment you’re making, what many people forget is that you can always refinance your home loan if you think you can get yourself on better financial footing. However, making this decision isn’t something you should enter into lightly.

To help you figure all this complication out, here are three things to consider before you refinance your home loan.

How Long You’ll Be Living In This Home

One of the very first things that you should think about before you even consider refinancing your home loan is how long you plan to remain living in that home.

According to Sarah Davis, a contributor to Money Under 30, going through the trouble of refinancing your home loan is really only something you’ll want to do if you plan on staying in that same house for at least several more years. The reasoning behind this is that, depending on the exact situation of your refinance, it may take you a few months or even years before you break even on what you paid versus when you’ll start saving. So if you can live with your current terms for a while longer and you plan on selling this home and moving onto something else soon, it’s best to just sit tight.

How Much Your Refinance Will Cost

In most cases, you’ll have to pay some considerable fees in order to refinance your home loan. Knowing this, you’ll want to come into the situation with your eyes wide open so that none of these fees shock you as you go through this process.

Generally, Michele Lerner, a contributor to Investopedia.com, shares that it usually costs somewhere between three and six percent of the total amount of your loan to refinance. With these costs, it may be quite a while before you start seeing the actual savings from your refinance. And while some refinancing offers come at “no cost”, these offers usually won’t give you as competitive of an interest rate, which is where you’ll end up paying more anyway.

How Your Terms Will Change

Some of the reasons why people look into refinancing their home loan in the first place is to get more favorable terms. So before you sign off on this, you’ll want to know just how your terms are likely to change.

According to Ben Luthi, a contributor to FoxBusiness.com, if you refinance from a 30-year loan to a 15- or 10-year loan, you may be able to get a much better interest rate and save a lot of money in the long run. However, this will result in you having a higher monthly mortgage payment. But if you can swing it, this could be a very positive change in your loan terms.

If you’re thinking about refinancing your home loan, consider how the information presented above could make this idea more or less ideal for your financial situation.