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Closing Day

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February 25, 2013 By Jackie

Eeeeek!!! Friday was our closing day!

No, we did not buy a new house.
No, we did not buy a second property.

We are still majorly crushing on our current home and expect to for years to come. So, we did the financially responsible thing and refinanced our home.

housephoto

When we bought our home almost 3 years ago, we got a 5.25% interest rate. Not bad at the time, but far from the great interest rate available today. We were able to refinance our home with a 3.25% interest rate.

With out getting too specific, the refinance is shaving hundred of dollars off our monthly mortgage payment. Considering I quit my reliable-paying day job not too long ago, we welcome a little break on the monthly cost of living in our home.

We also are a bit excited we get to “skip” next month’s payment. I hate saying the word skip, because you know those mortgage companies aren’t really letting you out of a payment. They just sort of put you on pause for a month while the loan is switching over. But, I still love that we have no mortgage payment due in March, and we will be starting up again with a much lower payment in April.

I will say the process was smooth and uneventful, but there was one part that had us a little nervous.  Although the type of refinance we went through did not require an appraisal, our lender did.  The house had to appraise for more than the new loan amount (probably a prudent thing for the lender to require). We opted to roll the closing costs into our loan, as well. So, the new loan amount equals the price of the payoff to our current lender plus our closing costs. The house had to appraise for at least that. Appraisals in this housing market are nerve-wracking.

We lucked out big time and our house appraised better than we needed.  We had a couple of things in our favor.  First, we bought our home at almost the lowest point of the housing crash in 2010.  How do we know it was the lowest?  Well, because we lost an entire year’s salary to sell our town home.  Yep, we had to write a check with way too many 0’s to sell our previous home.  It totally felt wrong.  But, then we were able to buy in a down market, and got a great price on our current house.  Second, the housing market has started to rebound in the Twin Cities.  We know because our awesome realtor sends us market updates, and a house down the street just sold super quick.  Lastly, we have made some improvements to the home.  We did not do them with the intention of raising the homes market value, but rather to make this home our dream home.  In the 3 years we have lived here, we added the deck and mostly finished the basement.  We paid for both of those projects in cash, after penny pinching to save up for each one and taking on DIY projects.

We loved this house the day we bought it.  We loved it even more the day we refinanced it.  We expect the love for this house to continue to grow as we make it our home and make memories of raising our children here.

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Comments

  1. Anja says

    February 25, 2013 at 10:20 am

    I guess congratulations are in order – on loving your home even more than the day you actually bought it! =) It is really pretty!

  2. janet @ ordinary mom says

    February 25, 2013 at 10:59 am

    If you can swing it, it is always nice to make your new payment a little more than the required. You still get a bit extra in your hand every month and that little extra going onto your mortgage is going off the principal. We have been throwing at least an extra $50/month on our mortgage since we bought our first house and have saved years and thousands of dollars on the final tally.

    Congrats and happy to hear you are staying put. :)

    • Jackie says

      February 25, 2013 at 11:19 am

      Thanks Janet. That is great advice!!

  3. Jule {inside9B} says

    February 25, 2013 at 11:12 am

    Wow that sounds awesome! I find all those financial things quite scary somehow as I don’t have a clue about all the details that have to be considered and then I have to rely on pros. I prefer being able to control everything myself and hate to be dependent. But lucky you, no payment in March and then lower rates after that, that’s fantastic!!
    Jule

  4. kara @ launching our life together says

    February 25, 2013 at 12:40 pm

    Oh my goodness! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a photo of your house’s exterior. How beautiful and unique! Congrats on the refinancing. As a financial analyst, I love to play with amortization tables and tweak numbers to see what different rates and payments would change. Oh sorry…I’m done being a nerd.

  5. Micaela @MindfulMomma says

    February 25, 2013 at 7:49 pm

    Good work! We’ve been in our house for over 20 years and have refinanced a few times. It’s worth it to keep lowering that interest rate!

  6. Gwen says

    February 25, 2013 at 10:07 pm

    Congrats!! Oh you are doing the right thing in doing things with cash. Over my lifetime I’ve looked back on when I quit teaching to be home with my kids. I’d sub one or two days a week but that’s all and no pressure. But in those times with very little $ I still gave to The Lord, oh I’d cut the girls and my hair, paper and paint and sew curtains, but during these hardest times financially is when we’d get our really nice couches, or bedroom furniture of exceptional quality and think Wow! God really blessed us with many wonderful gifts via a bonus or an unexpected tax refund or the interest rates fell (they were at 12.5%if you had a 15 year loan–15% on 30 year mortgage )…God’s blessings overflow when you have time to tell your kids about nature as you go outside to play, and little things like discovering earthworms in your own back yard…you’ll be home to find them with the boys as they plant a veggie so that they’ll want to eat it! Yes, give to God, talk to your fellas about things plus how Jesus loves them and continue to be wise yet take delight in fun stuff too. Congratulations from the bottom of my heart!!!

  7. Jackie says

    February 26, 2013 at 8:20 am

    Thank you all for your amazing support and encouragement. You are so sweet!

    This is our first home we have been in long enough to consider a refinance and plan to stay in long enough for it to be worthwhile.

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