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Archive for May, 2012

Two Year Schadenfreude anniversary

May 26th, 2012 at 11:23 pm

I started tracking the values of twelve properties in my region, including mine: ten in my city, one in the same county, and one in a different county. My criteria for tracking: did I work with the individual homeowner, were we close in age? One I stopped tracking last year because the house was sold. One condo, one townhome, ten houses. Replaced that with a 3 bedroom house one town over.

COUNTIF(Houses with depreciating equity): 8
My equity went up by 0.17% over two years. That's with a 20-year mortgage, then a 12-year mortgage. Only two people refinanced over that two-year period. One refinanced four times over 100 months prior to May 2010, so she's probably due.
Median mortgage paid: $10702.96 from inception of mortgage. $16167.38 average.
Loan to Value ratios vary from 109.79 to 43.62.
Percent of mortgages paid year to date: 2.6683% to 17.2567%. I'm ranked fifth from the top, not bad for nine months mortgage.
Median mortgage balance remaining: $257614.13; average is $253945.84.
The Median Mortgage Debt in my state is $225581. This is one of the most expensive counties for real estate.

Median equity: $64205.97; average $69271.85
Median Value of Home Equity nationwide is $181189, so you can tell we suck bananas here. Lengths of mortgage range from 179 months to 9 months. Lengths of home ownership range from 179 months to 70 months.

Median equity percentage: 21.07%; average 21.78%.

All About Dirtnap 4 Dollars 2013

May 26th, 2012 at 03:37 pm

I am one of a few participants in a certain celebrity dead pool who did not select someone under the age of 50. That's not hurting me yet, but if Lindsay Lohan and Dick Cheney die this year I certainly shall have strong competition. So next year I will have maybe a bell curve assortment of nonagenarians, octogenarians, septuagenarians, sexuagenarians, 50+ yos. So my total potential point total exceeds 250.

I will also encrypt the dead pool lists of other entrants. I didn't even mention Robin Gibb dying to my family, although he was my fourth strike of the year. My husband did, and my child asked who on the dead pool had zero points. I named one, he prompted "who else?" until I went through all the names and when I mentioned the last name he said "serves that person right." Seems the dear tot is in high dudgeon over two picks on that person's list. Yes you read that correctly, my kid is upset that someone he doesn't know put two people he admires on a dead pool list. He's memorized the names of the offenders AND their entries.

Pleasant Surprises

May 9th, 2012 at 04:23 am

Zillow has undervalued my property by 30%. It did this by losing the first eight years of market price data for our house and halving the square footage of our house.

The real estate agent says she can price and sell our house at $90K above what I thought we could get for it.

DH has already started spending his life insurance returns. Admittedly so have I: I paid $140 of our credit card debt and put $60.24 toward the HELOC, and the Lord and Master bought a digital camera from a pawnshop and is shopping for a laptop. But I parked 90% of the money in the money market account like a good financial steward.

Got a nice message from the proprietor of a Bellingham bookstore I reviewed on Yelp.com: my review was that I enjoyed the shop and really wanted to buy something I needed but couldn't find certain authors in stock. Another store had what I needed but it wasn't as welcoming. His message was essentially that he found my review comments helpful, but some authors aren't to be found (I was looking for Gore Vidal) because they go in and go out very quickly.

It's assuring to know I have enough $$ to get the house up for sale and to live in an apartment hotel, that I can apply for a bridge loan or a contingency loan, and even if I get turned down I can use my available credit to corral a downpayment while I wait for my home to sell.

Four-month progress

May 3rd, 2012 at 05:04 pm

January 1:
HELOC $14771
Savings 10473
Gold & Silver 11918

Savings Goals:
Car Replacement: 3000
Roof Replacement: 3400
Tax: 1787
Laptop 400
Saint Louis 1200

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May 1:
HELOC $13700
Savings 14768
Gold & Silver 12350

Savings Goals:
Car Replacement: 1200
Roof Replacement: 2000
Tax - done! Gold star!
Laptop - done! Gold star!
Saint Louis - done! Gold star!

$3400 savings goals reached
$4300 savings increased
$1071 HELOC decrease

$96 left in chequing account. I hope Target National Bank hasn't received/processed my payment yet, although I understand it's prompt that way.