About Kavivero
The refinance calculator built by people who don't sell mortgages.
Refinancing is a five-figure decision and most online calculators are designed to capture you as a lead, not to optimize your outcome. Kavivero is the alternative.
Why Kavivero exists
In late 2025, US mortgage debt crossed $12.6 trillion. Black Knight estimates that more than 14 million homeowners would benefit from refinancing if rates moved another 50 basis points. The decision matters: a single optimal-vs-suboptimal refinance can swing $30,000–$100,000 in lifetime interest.
Yet every popular refinance calculator — Zillow, Bankrate, NerdWallet, LendingTree — is a lead-generation product. The "calculator" is a thin layer over a partner-lender auction. The "rate" you see is the rate the affiliate wants you to see. The "break-even" math conveniently ignores the variables that would tell you to wait.
Kavivero takes a different approach. We treat refinance timing as the optimization problem it actually is: find the action that maximizes NPV across your stay horizon, given current market data and probabilistic future rates. Then we show you the math.
Operating principles
Independent
Every other refinance calculator is owned by a lender, broker network, or affiliate marketer. Kavivero takes no referral fees and lists no partner lenders. The recommendation you get is the recommendation the math produces.
NPV over rules-of-thumb
The "1% rule" and "two-year payback" heuristics ignore closing-cost rolling, PMI elimination, and time value of money. We use full NPV across your actual stay horizon — the only number that captures the real trade-off.
Public data, transparent math
Rates from Freddie Mac PMMS. Yield curve from FRED. Home price changes from FHFA HPI. Every input is free, public, and cited. No black-box "proprietary" rate adjustments.
No lead generation
We never sell, share, or broker your loan information. Kavivero is a paid analysis tool, not a funnel. The only thing we will ever ask you to buy is a more detailed report — never a mortgage.
Where our data comes from
Every rate, yield, and home-value figure we compute against is sourced from a public, US-government or quasi-public dataset. None of these data feeds cost us money — and they don't cost you any either.
| Source | What we use it for |
|---|---|
| Freddie Mac PMMS | Weekly 30-year, 15-year, and 5/1 ARM mortgage rates |
| FRED (Federal Reserve) | Treasury yield curve, Fed funds, SOFR — daily |
| FHFA House Price Index | Home value estimation by state and MSA |
| CFPB HMDA | Aggregate mortgage market context — annual |
| BLS Shelter CPI | Housing-cost inflation context |
| CME FedWatch | Implied Fed funds rate path probabilities |
Run the math on your own loan
The free calculator runs full break-even analysis. The $9 report adds rate trajectory modeling, term comparison, PMI removal strategy, and a downloadable PDF.
Start a Free Analysis