House of Rock.

Provided all goes according to plan by the end of this day I will be the official sole owner of the House of Rock. In order to get Jesse’s name removed, I was forced to refinance.

And let me tell you, refinancing is a huge pain in the butt. In addition to costing scores and scores of mula, it’s an adventure that requires a legal team, a mortgage lender, a mortgage broker, an insurance team, an accountant (or someone equally as tax-savvy), and the alignment of the 48 moons of Saturn. As it happens, the celestial bodies seem to have fallen into order and at 2:00pm I will be passed a stack of papers 8 inches thick and a blue pen with which I am to sign blindly because, seriously, who’s going to read all that crap. Oh yes… and thank you so much for lending me the money that’s already being lent to me. Here, let me write you a staggering check to pay you for your troubles.

Adding to the frustrations is this whole credit crunch mayhem. The lender actually required me to write a short something stating why I wanted to refinance. Essentially… an essay. I had to write an essay. You can’t make this stuff up. Being the meager homebuyer that I am, I gladly bucked to their demands, wrote up my piece, and thanked them for the opportunities.

Back in the day, J.P. Morgan used to give out loans based on the character of the borrower. Frankly, I think it’s unfortunate that we can’t fall back on this. These days it doesn’t matter how much dirt is under your fingernails… it’s more important that your mortgage costs won’t exceed 30% of your salary* and that you can write an essay explaining your desires to refinance**

Kung Fu threats don’t work either***. In fact they aren’t typically taken very well at all. Those bankers are an ornery bunch.

No matter. Sometimes you pass Go and other times you land on Luxury Tax. Let’s leave the banking matters to the banks and just hope that the coming years find the house of rock filled with good times. Here’s to you House of Rock!

*That number might not be right. I don’t remember exactly.
** The purpose of this, if you’re curious, is to create a paper trail so that if something goes horribly awry and it is found that I refinanced for some other less worthy reason, I can be held responsible and the bank can cover its butt.
***
bank: Mr. DiDonato, how’s 6%?
mike d: 6%!?!?! It sounds like you guys need a good crescent kick to the head.
bank: how’s 6 and an eighth?
mike d: 6 and an eighth is just fine.

2 thoughts on “House of Rock.

  • 8/30/2007 at 6:05 am
    Permalink

    “Kung Fu threats don’t work either”

    Heh, and I was just about to respond saying your essay should consist of “Give me the money or I kick your face in”.

    In other news, check out the video linked here:
    http://www.metafilter.com/64235/Space-Wolf
    Hilarious.

    Reply
  • 2/9/2008 at 10:58 am
    Permalink

    “And let me tell you, refinancing is a huge pain in the butt.”

    And refinancing is *never* to your advantage due to the front-end interest load on your mortgage amortization schedule. The best thing for you to do now is to use equity acceleration to payoff your mortgage *years* sooner than you thought possible:

    More and more folks are using a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) or a business-line-of-credit (BLOC) or personal-line-of-credit (PLOC) as an interest cancellation account to accelerate their home equity and payoff their home *years* sooner than listed on their mortgage amortization schedule.

    Unfortunately, today’s Real Estate market means that folks can no longer count on appreciation to build home equity. Those who realize that they need to pay down their current mortgage debt are looking for alternate ways to aggressively (yet safely) build equity.

    And they’ve discovered a perfect online system to do that; they can focus on their wealth accumulation goals while accelerating their equity simply by using a Home Equity Line of Credit to ‘power’ the Money Merge Accountâ„¢ financial solutions program.

    A typical 30 year loan (of whatever type) can be paid down in 1/3 to 1/2 the time — it’s a great way to save *huge* amounts of income by eliminating a mortgage amortization front-end interest load. (On a million-plus dollar home, I’ve personally seen where the Money Merge Accountâ„¢ program will save the homeowner $750,000 in interest charges!)

    And the best thing – homeowners don’t have to refinance their existing mortgage or, in most cases, make any adjustments to their lifestyle.

    It is unfortunate that most of us were never taught to follow three essential principles: (1) Avoid paying interest, whenever possible, (2) Use other people’s money, whenever possible and (3) Find and use a financial system that will guide you, especially if you have the tendency to go off-track. The Money Merge Account™ software and the program’s counselors use these principles to keep each homeowner focused on their wealth accumulation goals.

    I’d be happy to provide further details…

    Reply

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