I last wrote that we decided
to refinance our house in February ... and we finally signed all the papers yesterday. It took almost 2 months to get everything in order since we had a major hiccup in the process:
appraisal value.
I was told that to refinance, we needed to have 20% equity in our house; so that even if the value fell, the fact that we put 20% down in 2005 and paid seven years of mortgage principle (including an extra $150 of principle a month) should cushion any devaluation. Well, that was the theory. The reality was that the appraiser had a personal vendetta against me (
there could be no other explanation) and valued our house so low we could not refinance.
I received and read the report late one night when Matt & the baby were asleep, my eyes welling up as I tried to decipher what went wrong. One of the comps was a house I had been watching - it had sold when we bought in 2005 for the same price, and recently sold again for less but for a good amount - and I thought it would help our value. Instead the appraiser said it's remodeling was far superior than ours -- by $50,000 -- and chose to comp our homes to small tiny ranches with falling down detached garages. Why? Because we live in a split level and we can only count our main floor and top floor as livable square footage. Our family room space - 1/2 grade below - does not count, and neither does that bathroom. So our home was being compared to others with only 1300 sq feet of livable space, 1 bathroom + basement, even though ours has 1300 sq feet + 1/2 grade below family room, 2 baths + basement. Crazy.
So after a lot of crying all through the night, I learned that you can appeal an appraisal if you can find serious fault. And I did. All 3 comps were in a different school district, had smaller total square footage, and 2 were not remodeled as nice as ours. They also had detached garages and much lower assessed values. After talking to our lender, he suggested I write this up and present it with some new comps found by a realtor, which I did. One week later, we received word that our value was raised by $30,000 and we were cleared to refinance. I felt the surge of victory run through my veins as the new report came through.
I know that Matt and all my family were thrilled for us -- not only for the saving money aspect - but because it was all I could talk about for weeks and they were sick & tired of hearing about it. But honestly, when I quit my job I not only made it a priority to raise my children but to help out as much as possible financially (I can't really make money, but I can sure help us save it). This refinance was a huge endeavor for me, I wasn't going to let some _______________ [
insert any unkind word about appraiser here] ruin it for me!
In the end, our monthly payment is now $30 less a month but it includes the real estate taxes and home insurance:
a savings of $5400/year!
