Yesterday I received my closing disclosure on my refinance of the mortgage, for the 3 day wait. So, possibly could be closing by next Tuesday. BUT, there are a couple of things that need to be worked out/clarified before I'm happy with this.
#1 - the property tax escrow payment they are now showing. They've had it close at what my current annual property taxes are. Now the latest closing disclosure has almost doubled it! That now puts what my new house payment (including the property taxes and insurance), with this way lower interest rate than I'm currently paying, at more than I'm paying now! Um...no!
I called up the person now handling the closing stage and she said there is a note from underwriting dept that they updated it by adding 1.25% to our appraised value and re estimating our property taxes. I said based on what "appraisal"? Per their decision an appraisal wasn't necessary, so what amount did they use? They upped my annual property tax estimate to $9375 a year! We are currently paying $5544 a year. If they want to do a cushion and increase what we are actually paying per year by 1.25%, well, I guess ok, but not by 70%. Not to mention, in my closing costs they are already putting in 5 months worth of escrow, right off the bat.
#2 - the payoff amount they have for my current mortgage. It's $4554 higher what my current loan balance is, after making my Feb 1st mortgage payment. I still haven't gotten a good answer on that, other than she said the "date range" for the payoff they got is from starting a like 1/1/21. Then she said I have to pay a daily interest rate up to when the previous mortgage gets actually paid off and I said I realize that. She told me the daily interest rate and I said yes, that is the amount. Then she explained that while after I sign they usually have the payoff done in 4 days, they put in an extra 7 days of interest in their estimate as a cushion. I said ok, so lets say we close next Wednesday and add 7 business days to that for them to get their $$, that's at most 33 days of interest, which is $1873, not $4554!!
She said she is now requesting an updated payoff amount and with the revised payoff date now, it should come out to the correct amount owed to them. It better!!
The good news is that we don't have to go anywhere to sign the closing docs. They send a notary person to our home! Easy peasy! Sweet!
The cabinet for the laundry is like twice the cost I was expecting. Ugh. I just keep telling dh I'm glad we aren't trying to build now, with the prices of lumber and everything gone up.
The Hvac guy called dh last night and explained the "air exchange" system to him. He also said our humidity level in our house is way too high (it's like 43%) and is also probably contributing to the soffit issues dh is having over the garage/bonus room. The system is like $5,000-$6000. Another ugh, but should be done.
In chatting with him, he told dh his almost new house he built is going up for sale tomorrow. He said the market is just too good to pass up making that much money on it, so with only living in their big new beautiful house not much more than 2 years, they are selling and I guess going to build again. NO thank you! LOL. But, he said they could get 1.2 million for it and he's more about making money then tied to his house. I will be snoopy and look at the listing online, just because I like to see insides of nice houses and how they are decorated, LOL. DH keeps saying we should sell ours! I'm like well, if our house is worth $X then to buy or build something equivalent we're just going to have to pay the same, so what's the point. If we were downsizing, then yes, this would be smart time to sell, because all these out of state people moving here thinking this is the place to live, haha. The hvac guy is also his own contractor for building (he's built like 5 houses for themselves so far and they only typically stay 2-3 years) so he can do a lot of it for cost/cheaper than we could have a house built. He also said that all the people moving to this one area that has really grown the past 10 years are typically only staying about 2 years and leaving. Dh asked why? Apparently they come from out of state, think they can manage these high house prices on the salaries in this area and then run through their savings in 2 years and then can't afford the house on the salary they now have. Then the next out of state person comes in and does the same thing. Interesting.
Don't you love it when they come up with terms, both words you know, but together mean nothing...as in "date range."
ReplyDeleteIf they are sending a notary to you, will that person be able to explain things and if they are not like you think they should be, will the notary be able to do anything about it? I think not. But, I can imagine you can handle the whole shebang. I agree that your making money won't mean much if you have to turn around and spend it.
I won't agree to having the notary here to sign, unless I'm in agreement with their final disclosing docs
DeleteWhen we got married in 1985 we were living in D.C. My ex hated it (I wasn't thrilled) so we flew out to Colorado to look for a home in the event he could transfer to Boulder or Estes Park. I couldn't transfer as I worked at the World Bank. While the prices seemed "cheap" on our D.C. salaries I for one had no illusion that my ex would be making the same money as in D.C. - and I would be out of a job, so I think your HVAC guy is probably right. Heck, Swiss salaries are wonderful but so many people don't realize that the cost of living in Geneva, in particular, is horrendous. The two usually go together don't they!
ReplyDeletethat's the strange thing I've always not understood about here....the housing prices and cost of living are high, but the salaries are awful! How are people affording to buy these houses on their salaries? The housing prices here are same as the suburb area we came from, but the salaries were in line. Here they are not at all.
DeleteRe-fi can make ya crazy!!
ReplyDeleteYou seem to be on top of it, so that's good. Hopefully it works out & is worth it. The number games they play.
We built once. We love it. But never again! :0)
it's just been about 3 1/2 weeks since I started the re-fi process so it's going smooth and quick, other than this sudden change what they want to set aside each month for property taxes! I can see having some cushion for it to go up, but not almost double. Hopefully they figure out it. I would never build again either, unless it was a small small house, LOL.
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