Though I would rather refi with CU than a bank, I believe this is the slowest refi we have ever done. With exception of 4 month refi from hell (which probably should have never been approved in the first place - was in order to buy second home - we kept that loan 5 minutes because were able to sell property immediately after refi).
Anyway, though we only refi when interest rates are rock bottom and there is a stampede, this definitely takes the cake for *slowest.*
I finally just e-mailed the CU today to ask status of appraisal, not expecting a response for quite a while. But, I JUST got a response that appraisal is fine and well.
I knew I was overly paranoid. Gee, what a surprise? I needed $250k value for 80% loan to value. I guessed $250k. They appraised $250k.
Has anything changed since the boom?
I told dh I was so good that I could do an appraisal without even doing any work. Clearly I don't understand the whole process - it is just always magically what it is supposed to be, it seems to me.
This is good news for property taxes and bad news for net worth. Property tax went with $263k assessment at 12/31/10. So this will be another $13k or so drop to value. The value date for property taxes next year will be 12/31/11. An appraisal dated 12/23/11 will be useful if they try to assess at higher than $250k. So far I have found assessments to be on the low side - I am sure they don't want to spend a lot of time and effort on appeals, so they just aim for the low side. Seems to be how it has been. So I am guessing our tax assessment will be under $250k for the next year's property taxes.
As long as I can refi, have 20% equity, and my property taxes are going down (especially since no plans to sell right now) then is fine by me. Maybe property values can shoot up when we are ready to sell and downsize. In the interim, we enjoy the reduced taxes.
Refi Progress
January 13th, 2012 at 02:40 am