refinancing the house, appraiser stopped by

beerorkid

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We are going from a 30 year to a 15, from 6.5% to a 4.5%

Appraiser was just over. Nice fella. Once he saw the BorKade he went from stern appraiser guy to teen full of joy. About 30 minutes of chatting about old arcades in our town, how to make your own table top machine, and him wanting to buy one of my pins, and then he got back to appraising. He took about 20 pics of the BorKade. "My underwriter is not going to believe this"

I told him he was free to play all he wanted, but he said he had to go do family stuff, but will be back next Sunday to play. He wants some help building a tabletop MAME and was so happy.

Much better than slipping the guy a $20 :)
 
Insane amount of money. A coworker was in the exact same situation, same bank that failed and transfered our mortgage twice, a HELOC, and decided to call and see what could be done.

We are rolling the HELOC into the new loan and will save so much by refinancing.

I just love showing people who have no clue I have a mini arcade in my house and watching their reactions. He mentioned that if he did not have kids, ummm exactly ;)
 
Cool story. It is funny how people like us don't think anything of having ten machines laying around, and it takes me a few minutes to reset when someone new comes over and has no idea people do this.
 
My appraiser did the same thing when we tried to refi and saw my arcade.

Sadly the house is not worth what the bank wants it to be and we could not proceed. Values decliend way too much, the appraisal was not even close! Even with square footage compared to others and the improvements I did.

We already had a low rate, just wated to get it possibly 2 ponts lower.
 
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Congrats on the re-fi!

We did this about 5 years ago. We had a 30 year mortgage at 5.25%. A lady I worked with at the time kept saying re-fi, re-fi, re-fi. I told her our mortgage was so low already. She said, "Do the math".

So we "did the math". Went could go from 30 year at 5.25% to 15 year at 4.25%. Payment went UP $60 per month, but we're saving $197,000 in interest!

Needles to say we went to the bank the following week.

It really makes a difference, and it did not seem like it would.

Congrats on your savings!

Chris
 
Well mine was with my bank, I will not go with anyone else personally. And my state has suffered hugely over the years, yours might be different.

Good luck though!
 
I went through something very similiar.
Short version:
Bought house at (low) market value @ 6.25% interest rate. A year later tried to refi only to have them run a comp and decline us. My "low market value purchase" turned into being slightly worth less in one year. 6 months later I get a call from the gal that did my first mortgage stating, "I found an awesome deal and can get your refinanced. call me." So I called her back. There had been a few houses sold in my neighborhood that went for decent money which of course drove the value of my house up juuuuuuuust enough where I qualified.
So I went from 6.25% down to 4.65%.
Bottom line to this madness is it doesn't matter how sweet of a house you may live in. If the lender pulls a comp in your area and the sales have been low/non existent you're screwed. Hopefully there's more people like my personal mortgage gal. She kept us in mind and kept pulling weekly comps and (6 months later) got us into a much better rate.

Good luck to you!
 
That's so true. I mean realistically how many people actually stay in there own how for 30 years.

Definitely. Not only that but the interest over that term is INSANE. Of course, the bank will never position it like that. They'll just congratulate you on being a "home owner!".

No disrespect to people who actually have those mortgages. Who am I to judge? Just do some homework and try to save some money if you can.
 
We had thought about it a few times recently, then our bank was closed by the feds. Loan bounced around twice and we figured we would check into it. Our neighborhood has improved insanely over the last 7 years. Removal of railroad tracks, new bike path, paved street, cool lamp posts, and 100 newly planted trees. A nursery opened up a block down and is doing great. A new arena and other complexes are being built a few blocks away. We have done a ton of work on the house, remodeled the kitchen, cedar front steps, landscaping, and are replacing walls in two rooms right now. That last bit might hurt us a bit, since it is under construction right now, but we are betting it appraises well.
 
Definitely. Not only that but the interest over that term is INSANE. Of course, the bank will never position it like that. They'll just congratulate you on being a "home owner!".

No disrespect to people who actually have those mortgages. Who am I to judge? Just do some homework and try to save some money if you can.

It sort of depends on your situation honestly. Obviously, most people aren't going to be in a home for 30 years, and it depends on interest rates as well. But flash back to 2001...my wife and I were saving for a house, trying to get 20% down. We got up to like 10%, and then...housing prices went up 5 to 10%. So we save $15k, but prices went up $15k, so what did we save? Nothing. We gave up and bought a house with a 30 year, stayed there 4 years. Ended up being a great decision. If we had stayed renting and saving, never would have been able to buy a house over those 4 years. We knew we weren't going to stay there 30 years, but that's not really the point, it's basically just a method to make housing more affordable (which in return drives up the prices making it less affordable, so it's a little ironic, lol).

Right now, you get a loan at 4.5%, and you can deduct that on your taxes, so your effective rate is around 3%. At this point, the interest really isn't hurting that much, not nearly as much as when your rate is 7 to 10%. So when inflation comes (and it probably will be here in the next couple years) interest rates will go a lot higher, so even on cd's you can make 5 to 6%, higher than the money on your house loan.

Now the 'interest only' loans, those are probably a bad idea. :) I think those are all gone now though.
 
Doesn't it hurt your credit to refi? I just bought my house two years ago with 5% interest. I was told refinancing would destroy my credit and only save me about 2000 a year.
 
Doesn't it hurt your credit to refi? I just bought my house two years ago with 5% interest. I was told refinancing would destroy my credit and only save me about 2000 a year.

I guess it could. They do pull credit when they re-finance, so that would do it (no matter what they say). We did ours 3 years into our mortgage, and they had no problems at all, but we have not had to do it since, so I don't knwo if that would still be the case or not.

Chris
 
Let's say you've got a mortgage on $200K at 5%. On a 15 year mortgage you'll pay around $83K in interest. On a 30 year term you'll pay $184K. That's just interest.

Even if you're only planning to stay for a few years you're still getting screwed.

EDIT: But hey... if it makes you happy then do it :)
 
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Doesn't it hurt your credit to refi? I just bought my house two years ago with 5% interest. I was told refinancing would destroy my credit and only save me about 2000 a year.

Applying for a mortgage or refi only drops your credit score a little IF (LET ME STRESS IF) you're not run through several lending institutions. Then every little bit adds up to a lot. This is called an inquiry which drops your credit much less. And depending on the lender they may/might/will view several inquiries as one inquiry.

ONLY saving $2K a year? Basic math would mean $60K saved @ a 30 year loan right? But it's not basic math involved right? Because how much interest does that save you in 30 years? It's a hell of a lot more the $60K.

IMHO - it's only beneficial to refi if you can drop your interest rate by a full percentage. Beware, refi's can get utterly expensive .... mine only cost me ~$2K IIRC however I've seen people spend $6K on a refi.
 
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