I’m currently experiencing one of those rare (and probably fleeting) times when I feel like I am not in financial ruin. This unfamiliar sensation started on Thursday, when I found out from my loan officer that my appraisal had been revised and now shows a higher value for my home. This change means my refinance can go through as planned, and a $200 monthly savings is in my near future. (Take that, bitch-cow appraiser!)

To make a good situation even better, when the loan officer was updating my loan, she made what appears to be a clerical error and now, for reasons that are slightly fuzzy to me, I’ll be getting $1200 back at closing. I probably should look into this a little more, but at the moment I am content to keep my mouth shut, pay $6 more a month for my loan, and pocket the cash. And speaking of cash, it also appears that when the loan closes that magical thing will happen where I somehow don’t have to make a mortgage payment for one month. Add to all of this the fact that I got my tax refund on Friday, and I’m basically rolling in money.

Historically, I am not good at rolling in money. The urge to spend becomes overwhelming, and while I haven’t done anything too rash (yet) the desire is certainly there. For example, I suddenly feel like I can’t go another minute without an iPhone.

Side note: Interestingly, an iPhone wouldn’t be the worst thing for me to buy. I get a reimbursement from work for my cell phone bill and, because of some administrative screw up by AT&T that I have tried in vain to sort out, every month I pay my bill, and every month they send me a check refunding it. So, between the reimbursement and the refund, I am actually making money each month on my cell phone.

(The above side note is clearly the groundwork of an elaborate effort to ultimately justify the purchase of an iPhone).

What I really should, and hopefully will, use this money for is to deal with the issues in the main bathroom of my house. A full remodel would be great. Fixing the gaping hole in the wall and repairing the broken pipe so I could, I don’t know, actually shower in it is pretty much a necessity.

Even knowing that I must use my money for this bathroom project, I couldn’t help but sign Kabluey and I up for an year-long membership to the Hopworks Mug Club. We go to Hopworks pretty frequently, and will probably increase our appearances there over the summer, when we can walk the pups there and sit outside while we drink a beer. There are assorted perks to the club, including 21oz beers for the price of 16oz, special parties and exclusive beers. But best of all, we both got free (loose interpretation of that word) t-shirts! And anyone who knows me knows that I will do just about anything for a t-shirt.

Tags: Home refinance, Hopworks, tax refund

The fact that my home refinance is headed for disaster is not surprising, considering the complete lack of forethought that went into this endeavor. What is irritating, though, is the feeling that I got hosed by the appraiser.

I don’t consider myself a friendly person. I’m not particularly outgoing or social. But, I put on a good face. I guarantee you that the people I know who drive me nuts have no idea how I actually feel. I expressed this to a co-worker once and he looked at me curiously. I could tell he was wondering what I really thought of him. So I calmly reassured him that I did, without a doubt, like him… but if I didn’t he would never know.

I guess it was the anti-dog thing that rubbed me so wrong that I just didn’t care enough to make the home appraiser think I liked her. I exchanged no pleasantries. I cracked no jokes. I stood by and watched when she took her shoes off by my front door, even though I don’t care if people wear shoes in my house, and in fact, recommend it based on the extreme dustiness of my finished basement. Nope, instead I just alternated between packing my lunch and huffily locking up dogs. I was noticeably irritable, at best. Downright surly, at worst.

The appraiser showed me. The appraisal came back $10K less than I needed in order to make the loan work. My credit score is through the roof, and I have never been late on a mortgage payment. It would seem to me that since I can afford my current payment, I can certainly afford one $200 lower. But banks are picky these days, and logic does not appear to be a factor in the decision making process.

Now, my easy, quick refinance is a bit more complicated. I have to go out on my own and find evidence that my home was low-balled. If I provide this information to the bank, and they accept it, the loan process can continue. If they don’t revise the appraisal (and they said they rarely do), I either have to lower the amount of the loan (which is impossible. I need to finance the whole amount. If I had thousands of dollars lying around, would I even be going through this process?), or I walk away and lose my non-refundable application deposit.

I am certain that this situation will resolve itself in a satisfactory manner. These things just have a way of working out, and I am nothing if not lucky. (Yep, still trying to work the “positive thinking” angle. Question: how long does it usually take the universe to notice this optimistic bull shit and alter my cosmic path accordingly?)

Tags: Home refinance

I am in the middle of a somewhat hastily arranged home refinance. I don’t know what made me think about refinancing, but the idea popped into my head while at work one day so I went online and looked at exactly one mortgage option from exactly one bank. I filled out an application and according to my calculations, if it all goes through my monthly payments will be about $200 less a month. Of course, my calculations are hardly ever correct. And if I take after my mom, who went through a refinance last year, I will somehow end up paying more than I do now.

One of the items on the long and irritating list of tasks that have to be completed before this deal is wrapped up is to get the home appraised. Because I am always looking for an excuse to work from home, I arranged for the appraiser to come by my house this morning, despite her repeated attempts to schedule it for Sunday afternoon. I had really, really wanted to clean the house over the weekend. I thought it was important to get it all shiny and sparkly to try to make up for the tiny blemish on the bathroom shower wall:

But I didn’t clean. The thing about cleaning, is that it sucks. It sucks in general and sucks most of all on weekends. So, as the appointment time for the appraisal drew near and I looked around my messy house, my head filled with dread and shame. When the appraiser arrived, though, my feelings changed.

She knocked on the front door which (rightfully, if you ask me) caused Riley and Sigh to bark and approach the door. When I opened the door a crack, the appraiser immediately commanded me to lock the dogs in a room, and refused to come in until I did so. And I can understand why. I mean, have you ever seen anything more terrifying than this:

So for the duration of the appointment, I had to shuttle the dogs from room to room (the appraiser waited outside on the porch during each of the relocations) while she did her assessment. I don’t trust people who don’t like dogs, even though this lady claims that she is only skittish because she was attacked by a dog a few weeks ago. As the inconvenience of dealing with this woman grew, I found myself caring less and less about the disastrous state of my home. In fact, I was more than a little pleased when she turned to leave the house and I noticed that a rather large tumbleweed of dog fur had attached itself to the back of her black pant leg. Serves her right for making my dogs prisoners in their own home (but I hope she didn’t notice it until after she wrote and submitted my appraisal).

Tags: Home refinance, Riley, Sigh