The Appraisal is In — The Closing is Scheduled!

June 5th, 2010 | 10:10 am | Posted in Cutting Costs, Finance, Mortgage | 11 Comments »

Late this week we recieved the results of the appraisal done last week for our potential mortgage re-finance.

If you haven’t been keeping up with my nonsensical postings over the past few weeks, well, here’s a quick and dirty recap:

• At the end of April we thought we’d take a shot at refinancing our mortgage to eliminate paying PMI, lower the interest rate, and, most importantly, lower our minimum monthly payment considerably. [link]
• Through the re-fi process, we found out just how awesome our credit scores are. [link]
• When we found out that an apprasial was required to move forward and schedule a closing date, we freaked out because a decent chunck of the interior of our house could *and* should be considered a total s-hole. Rather than do a quick and dirty (but still costly) clean-up, we called in an extreme makeover type of contractor. [link]
• The quote for the renovation came just over $33k — we cleared out all of our furniture and green lighted the project. [link]
• Just wanting the potential new lender to leave us alone, and because we don’t *really* need to refinance anyway, we reluctantly scheduled the appraisal even with 1/3 of our home completely empty and in various stages of disrepair and demolition. [link]

Okay, so now you’re up to speed.

So, anyway, the appraisal came in and it’s not as high as I’d expected it to be.

I mean, I could argue about the area homes that they compared our home to until I’m blue in the face — I don’t know how a smaller cape-style home on a 4-lane state highway that faces a HUGE auto dealship can be considered comparable to my huge (in comparison) three story double gabled-ell on a tree-lined residential street but, then again, I’m not an appraiser.

Eitherway, the appraisal came in high enough so that we’ve got nothing to worry about.

We scheduled the closing for next Thursday so, unless anything unforeseen comes up (like if they pull our financials again and see a sudden $17k credit card balance), I won’t need to pay my mortgage at all in June and starting in July, I’ll only need to pay $500 per month.

That’s 60% less than what my current mortgage payment is!

So in one fell swoop, I’m on the cusp of eliminating PMI, paying off my mortgage faster than planned, and paying for this remodel faster than expected too.

I can’t wait for Thursday to be in my rear view mirror so that I know that it’s all official.

Then I’ll have my cake and eat it too…

No, really, I can’t believe how things are falling into place so quickly — it’ll be a huge load off of my shoulders when it’s all done.