flea

I went to the Historic Preservation Commission hearing tonight, and I had yto go first which was hard and scary, and our metal roof got denied as expected. But I stayed for much of the rest of the meeting, which was FASCINATING (our democracy in action!) and as is usual I found much to agree with on all sides (except the weepy sorority board member who was worried that externally applied window muntins would cause sorority girls to Die In A Fire.) And our builder and his wife came by at 8pm and we had a good long talk and they were rabidly on our side, more on our side than I was, and it is nice to be supported even if you don't fully agree. So we'll look at energy-star rated architectural shingles and creative ways to vent the roof, and see what we can do.

And in good news, it turns out we qualify for a (I think federal) program to allow mortgage refinances without PMI for people in just our situation - the value of the house dropping considerably since we purchased, but not in any danger of defaulting or anything. So we can refinance after all, for free (well, the bank paying), just as we'd been planning.

And use the money saved in the first year to pay for dental work on the Dillo. With that plus the fact that architectural shingles are cheaper than metal, we may have saved enough money today alone to pay for the dental work.

We learned this weekend, thanks to my FIL, that we're eligible for a first-time homebuyers tax credit of $7500. Which means that, if we elect to take it, we'll pay no taxes for this year, and will receive a check of whatever's left after the taxes are taken out. So, we'd get all our Federal taxes back (like, $3000, maybe) plus a check for anther $4500 or so, in April. The money has to be paid back, at $500 a year, starting two years from the time you take it, and if you sell your house at a profit, you have to pay it all back. If you sell your house at a loss, it gets "forgiven."

I'm not sure how I feel about this; I'm not sure if we'll take it. On the one hand it feels a bit like free money. We could use it to pay down some of the principle on the mortgage, or do some home improvement work. I feel a little strange that we didn't know about this when we bought the house; we're usually up on stuff like this, you know? So, on the other hand, I feel a little suspicious about "free money" from the government.

We also received a substantial gift of money from my in-laws, so that's another responsibility. They are scrupulously fair about giving gifts to their children. In this case, they wanted to celebrate mr. flea's completion of his dissertation, but they also wanted to give a substantial sum for mr. flea's sister, whose marriage is in trouble. The money is a secret from her husband, and is to serve as her emergency funds should things go wrong there. So that casts a little bit of a pall over the gift to us, in my mind. Also not sure what we're going to do with it - so many possibilities. Mortgage, student loans, long-neglected IRAs, college savings, furniture, home improvement. When you start to slice and dice it, even big money suddenly feels not-so-big.

The wire is showing as sent from Vanguard's web site; we're just waiting on a phone call from the lawyer to confirm they got it. We signed everything and they gave us keys at 9.

So we're in the house, attempting to get the children to nap on aerobeds. Well, mr. flea is doing that; I am sitting in my underwear in the living room poaching a neighbor's incredibly slow unprotected wifi.

It's a really nice house. At the walkthrough yesterday we met two neighbors. They both seemed incredibly pleased to see who had bought the house, and one of them had had dinner with the twins' grandmother the previous night, and knows our realtor. (In sad neighbor news, our lovely banker is moving to Cary; her husband is a "turf specialist" and maintains the sacred football field, and today had to get up early to build a coffin for the UGA bulldog, who died over the weekend. He'll be working for the soccer stadium and USA Baseball come next month. What an odd career! Anyway, we were looking forward to knowing them as friends, but I guess we will just have to pass on our NC tips instead.)

It's pretty nice. We're planning to go see Wall-E after the naps (which MUST happen; there is tiredness and whining), and then maybe picnic dinner in the house and a family bubble bath in the enormous jacuzzi tub. Tomorrow we register for school and drive home, stopping in Hickory to look at couches.

The wire request I overnighted needed to be notarized. Once you know that, the mysterious sentences do, in fact, imply this, but I did read them and did not understand that fact, despite being pretty smart. Ah, financial-speak.

So, we fill out the form again and take it to a bank tomorrow AM and sign it and FedEx it at the speediest rate, which means it probably gets to Vanguard on Monday before 12. Whoops, we are closing Monday at 9. Apparently we can go through the signing of everything at 9 and just not get the keys until the money actually deposits. When that may be is unclear, and we were planning to stay in the house Monday night, but oh well.

I am pretty deeply upset, though rationally it's not that big a deal. Casper is worried about me and giving me lots of hugs.

Dillo was up for the day at 5:10 this AM. Evil little rascal. I am so tired and it is only Tuesday.

We are planning a family (flea family plus Mother and her husband) visit to Athens for somewhere in the window of the 21st-26th. Wish us luck. There is a lot yet to be done.

Piedmont last night was a bit disappointing. We were seated upstairs, and it got very hot by the time we left, and my entree was kind of blah. I got the tagliatelle with shrimp and prosciutto in a tomato and white wine sauce, and the proscuitto made it very salty, and the tagliatelle were fresh and thin and floppy, whereas I like my pasta with a little more heft and bite. Ah well.

Tonight is Four Square. I've never been there. They have outdoor seating but I am not sure it's warm enough. Menu: http://www.foursquarerestaurant.com/menu.asp

I am thinking about the baby beet and wax bean salad, and the scallops, rice croquettes, or tenderloin for the entree. I realize, looking that the choices, that I actually like fairly plain food. These all seem sort of exhausting.

Question: if you had to choose between a banker mortgage where you liked the person and the fact that there's an actual bank involved, but the rate was higher, or a broker mortgage, where the guy was kind of annoying but the rate was better, which would you choose? I mean, you kind of have to choose the best rate, right? Since it's like, one zillion dollars in interest over the course of the loan, and even a variation of .02% is lots of money. Sigh. I really like the banker woman and I want to tell mortgage guy to eat me.

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Entries tagged with mortgage

A very mixed day.

Huh - money version

we appear to own a house

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June 2019

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