HLS, our MIP payment will increase from $302 to $315. The refi will be lowering our loan by about $27/mo. However, it will actually lower it more because Quicken brought to my attention that are not paying enough taxes on our current mortgage. I called Wells Fargo, our current lender and they confirmed that was true. They said we will owe around $900 in October and then they will correct (i.e.-increase) our current mortgage payment. The refi will immediately correct the tax issue (of course, we will still have to owe Wells Fargo $900), and in the process our current mortgage payment will go down $27/mo, not increase even higher than it is now in order to correct the taxes that were initially miscalculated in escrow.
Recent comps would support that our house could appraise for about $370,000. We remodeled it and now it has maple floors throughout, 5″ baseboards, granite countertops, etc., etc. Unfortunately, we decided to do the entire $40,000+ remodel on our credit cards. They are low interest, but still, none-the-less, a terrible decision, but we knew that when we did it. We are claiming ‘0’ on our taxes, so we are on the 5 year plan to pay the cards off with each tax refund (last year’s refund was $10,000). Due to charging all of our cards up to the top, our credit has taken a massive hit, going from the high 700s, down to the low 700s/high 600s. Honestly, we did’t care because our house is exactly how we want it and we never plan on leaving, but now I am caring because it matters for the refi.
We do not have a date to close yet, but Quicken said it usually takes 3-4 weeks and we started it last week. Our exact current principle balance is $318,696.86.
I would have loved to get a conventional loan to get rid of that damn MIP payment, but we only had 3.5% down.
