House Mortgage -- Countdown

[Gailete]

Got to have a chat with our bank manager. I need to turn in some paperwork and get approved, but she didn't seem to think at this point that for us to refinance our house loan, should be doable. Our current 'mortgage' (technically a loan of some type) is for $648/month with 13 years to go at 6.50% interest. She thinks we can get it to 5.00% interest for 15 years, and a $525/month payment. She understand that our rental property should be paid off in about 8 months and then we will dump that money ~$400/month on our house loan and hopefully have it paid off in 5-7 years. It would be paid off before I was out of my 60's and before my husband is in his 60's. Since we are highly dependent on my SS for the house payment I am very concerned that if something happened to me and he didn't get that check, he would be the proverbial up a creek with no paddle, life vest or boat. It is amazing what just a little bit of interest can mean so much. If we get this refinance, even if we didn't pay an extra cent, we would be saving $1500/year! However, I want to get these big hulking bills paid off ASAP. I can see the finish line finally.

[Gailete]

Did you know that you can buy MO at the Post Office or won't your rental place take them from the PO? Many on line sellers will ONLY take PO MOs since they can be checked if they are good so quickly. Also Walmart has them as well as my local grocery store. I don't know their fees, but I thought I would throw that out there in case your place won't take personal checks for your monthly rent payment (we do from our renters but have still had a few bounce from the last people, now we just have a guy that is perpetually late!). You could also check about making direct deposits into their payment account straight from your checking or savings account. If you don't want them to have your checking info, you could open an on line checking/savings account through Capital One 365 (or other on line banks, but not PayPal as they extract a fee) and deposit the money there and do a transfer from it to the rental place. You certainly shouldn't pay that much to pay your rent, unless this was the only time you had to do that.

[Randomsaver]

Congratulations on the sale. Just goes to show what happens when you make a list of written goals. I bet that list would be great for others that are selling their homes so as not to forget things that are necessary. I remember when we sold our first house and bought a different one, we didn't know that we would need to have fire insuarnce started and paid for from the minute the house was ours. Almost made a hash of buying a house because we didn't know about that fine but important detail.

Ah yes the insurance. I forgot to put that in, will do on my next update. I was asked to get insurance (renter's) as requirement before I signed the lease. Also, need to have a checking account otherwise withdraw cash, go to rent place, find out what fees to pay and how many money orders MO to make, and then go to Cash and Loan companies where they issue MO for free. Sadly I was assuming there's a branch of my bank near my rent place but could not see one so I ended up paying an ATM fee of $28 for my MOs.

Randomsaver, I haven't read the entire thread, so I might have missed something. When you complete the sale of your home, does that cancel out the Focused debt that you were working to get to $0?

Also, anyone know of another thread where folks are counting down paying a debt to $0? Hope that makes sense. Were others counting down anything in this thread other than mortgages?

This is the thread for it! Or at least I wish.

Feel free to itemize your debt or lump them all together. The key is to bring all down to zero.

On your question, I would keep counting down until I knew my next mortgage debt when I buy, in which I will adjust the debt balance. The goal is to buy ASAP though I have a 6-month rent renewable to another 6. I have some time to keep on saving/slamming down the "debt".

[dbow2000]

Focused Debt : $7K

Randomsaver, I haven't read the entire thread, so I might have missed something. When you complete the sale of your home, does that cancel out the Focused debt that you were working to get to $0?

Also, anyone know of another thread where folks are counting down paying a debt to $0? Hope that makes sense. Were others counting down anything in this thread other than mortgages?

[Gailete]

Congratulations on the sale. Just goes to show what happens when you make a list of written goals. I bet that list would be great for others that are selling their homes so as not to forget things that are necessary. I remember when we sold our first house and bought a different one, we didn't know that we would need to have fire insuarnce started and paid for from the minute the house was ours. Almost made a hash of buying a house because we didn't know about that fine but important detail.

[Randomsaver]

Right now I am zapped of all energy. Just flopped on a chair mustering finger strength to stroke the keys as I type updates.

Here was/is my weekly plan :

June 1-7:
- Find good agent to partner with --Done
- Deep clean my house --Done
- Get pre-qualified --Done

Jun 8-14:
- Take pictures of my house --Done
- Find property to move to and make offer for those I like --Done, offer got rejected as someone else offered crazy high to beat me
- Reserve lots I like and then cancel if one of my offers to buy gets accepted --Done

June 15-21:
- List my house for sale --Done
- Do Open House (today!) --Done
- Find property to move to and make offer for those I like --Done, offer got rejected as someone else offered crazy high to beat me
- Reserve lots I like and then cancel if one of my offers to buy gets accepted --Done

June 22-28
- Fix any repair/blemish needed on my house --Done
- Accept highest offer by the 25th --Done
- Find property to move to and make offer for those I like --Done, did not find any to my liking
- As back-up, find a rental apartment to move to and make reservations --Done
- Start selling stuff --Done

June 29-July 5
- Accommodate closing activities from sale of my house like furnish documents needed, home inspection, appraisal, etc. --Done, on Home Inspection and Termite Inspection and passed; appraisal is done and passed
- Advise utilities to close my account to the closing date --Done
- Continue selling stuff --Done
- Start packing stuff I don't need while I stay in the house --Done on hallways, 4 rooms,
- Contract a moving team --Done
- Find property to move to and make offer for those I like --Done, still looking


July 6-12
- Prepare welcome kit for the Buyer (keys, garage controls, floor plans, paint colors, stuff that were turned over to me by the Builder) --Done
- Depending on closing date, pack the remaining stuff or delay --Done packing on living room, dining room, laundry room, 2.5 baths, entertainment center, and nook area;
- Make decision : rent or buy --Done, Decided to Rent
- Make decision : sell or keep extra car --Undecided; leaning on keeping; bought car cover
- Sign lease on rent place moving into --Done


July 13-19
- Finish packing --Pending on kitchen and garage
- Move to new rental unit --Scheduled this coming weekend
- Dispose garbage from house being sold
- Clean house
- Have internet account set up on new rental place
- Since no already built home is to my liking, follow up on reserved lots and choose the best lot and cancel the rest. --Done

July 20-26
- Closing of house sale --Re-scheduled from 19th to 21st as per buyer request
- Continue house hunting

[Randomsaver]

Randomsaver congratulations! Good luck with the move.

Thanks LivingAlmostLarge! My house appraised satisfactorily as i expected so moving on. Tomorrow is signing of my lease to the apartment me and kid are moving into.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Randomsaver congratulations! Good luck with the move.

[Gailete]

$1400 additional principal for July, a bit more than 2 additional payments knocked out.

The best part is the interest portion of the monthly payment is falling dramatically each month.

Having the interest fall so much is the good thing about paying extra at the beginning of the loan!

[greenskeeper]

$1400 additional principal for July, a bit more than 2 additional payments knocked out.

The best part is the interest portion of the monthly payment is falling dramatically each month.

[Randomsaver]

Focused Debt : $8K

Focused Debt : $7K

[Gailete]

Our rental is a townhouse/rowhouse in an area where if you keep them up, they rent pretty easily. Safe neighborhood, good schools, even a DQ and convenience store within walking distance! Didn't have a chance to tell hubby about this until this morning and he was a happy camper to say the least.

At times I have wanted to just sell the place and get it out of our hands, but I am glad we persevered now that the light is at the end of the tunnel. One of the loans was for doing all the major stuff like, roof and windows, new kitchen (it still had it's original almost 100 years old kitchen), etc. all at one time. Without it, we would have never been able to get the money out of it that we get for rent.

[Randomsaver]

Jealous of landlords/landladies

Congrats on the on-time tenant payment Gailete!

I wish to be in like you one day who is the the business of rental. Part of the reason I'm moving to a townhome is the allure of easier to manage for renting out vs a house.

[Gailete]

Before I ever go shopping, I balance my two chckbooks so I don't accidently go over with my debit card. Yesterday, no matter how hard I tried I was off hundreds of extra dollars in the one checkbook. I'm generally good with math especially with a calculator to help me and I couldn't figure it out. Today I went to see if I could figure it out and account for what I spent yesterday. What I saw in my checking account almost made me faint. Our tenant that NEVER pays his rent on time had paid it on the 30th (the paymment wasn't showing yet on the computer)! Gave me a chance to pay the two loans on our rental 'early'.

Total owed $2,270.99 - the payment of $231.25 plus $68.75 extra and it is down to $1970.99. The booklet that has the payment reminders shows that we have 10 months left on this loan, but I've paid $268.75 extra now since Feb. of this year so we are more than a payment ahead.

The other loan was at $1693.12 and the payment $125.18 plus I paid $59.82 extra so it is now down to $1508.12. I've made $184.82 since April.

Can hardly wait to get these paid off so I can put that almost $500/month in extra payments on to our house mortgage in about 7-8 months I figure instead of 10. Or spit them between credit card bills and the mortgage. Not positive on that yet, but I am leaning hard to putting it all on the mortgage. There is something comforting in knowing that where you live is paid off. The credit card bills, I'm trying to pay the amount in the line that will pay it off in 3 years, so that even if the minimum payment is $100, I'm trying to pay $358 or whatever the amount might be. If I can keep that up, I those bills should be gone in three years.

[Randomsaver]

What a Busy Topsy Turvy past month for me. And I still got a month to go.

Yup, it's a lot of work.

I'm pricing it almost at cost so it shall sell fast. The price shall cover all commission and closing costs + only $5K profit.

Here was/is my weekly plan :

June 1-7:
- Find good agent to partner with --Done
- Deep clean my house --Done
- Get pre-qualified --Done

Jun 8-14:
- Take pictures of my house --Done
- Find property to move to and make offer for those I like --Done, offer got rejected as someone else offered crazy high to beat me
- Reserve lots I like and then cancel if one of my offers to buy gets accepted --Done

June 15-21:
- List my house for sale --Done
- Do Open House (today!) --Done
- Find property to move to and make offer for those I like --Done, offer got rejected as someone else offered crazy high to beat me
- Reserve lots I like and then cancel if one of my offers to buy gets accepted --Done

June 22-28
- Fix any repair/blemish needed on my house --Done
- Accept highest offer by the 25th --Done
- Find property to move to and make offer for those I like --Done, did not find any to my liking
- As back-up, find a rental apartment to move to and make reservations --Done
- Start selling stuff --Done

June 29-July 5
- Accommodate closing activities from sale of my house like furnish documents needed, home inspection, appraisal, etc. --Done, on Home Inspection and Termite Inspection and passed; upcoming next week is appraisal
- Advise utilities to close my account to the closing date --Done
- Continue selling stuff --Done
- Start packing stuff I don't need while I stay in the house --In progress
- Contract a moving team --Done
- Find property to move to and make offer for those I like --Still looking


July 6-12
- Prepare welcome kit for the Buyer (floor plans, paint colors, stuff that were turned over to me by the Builder)
- Depending on closing date, pack the remaining stuff or delay
- Make decision : rent or buy --Done, Decided to Rent
- Make decision : sell or keep extra car


July 13-19
- Sale of house closing
- Move to new rental unit
- Since no already built home is to my liking, follow up on reserved lots and choose the best lot and cancel the rest.