Refinancing Our House- Journey Completed

Like clockwork, about 45 days after our refinancing journey started, this morning it ended. We’ve officially and successfully purchased our house for the third time. You see, we bought it in 2004, refinanced in 2005 to a lower rate and refinanced again to an even lower rate and a 15-year mortgage today. The message? We must REALLY like this place. All in all, the process was pretty painless and easy. First, we had plenty of

Buyers: When You Also Have a Home to Sell

It’s Buyer’s Week at the Greater Hartford Real Estate Blog. We’ve talked about the current opportunity, importance of mortgage preapproval, and trading up in a down market. Many would-be buyers already own a home … a home they have to sell in order to buy a new one. Buying a new home while also selling an existing home can be a tricky situation. The biggest question is the order in which the sale and subsequent

Buyers: Trade Up in a Down Market

Buyer’s Week continues at the Greater Hartford Real Estate Blog, building on Monday’s look at the current opportunity and Tuesday’s suggestion to start with the mortgage. Check back each day for another post specifically for buyers. A real estate market with falling prices is actually a very good environment for trading up to a larger home – if you can overcome your fears. Consider a simplified example. Suppose home prices have fallen 10% from their

Buyers: Start with the Mortgage

It’s Buyer’s Week on the Greater Hartford Real Estate Blog. Yesterday we outlined the current opportunity for buyers, and today we’re talking mortgages. Check back each day this week for another post specifically for buyers. Unless you’re independently wealthy, the first step in buying a home is talking with a mortgage professional. They are the gatekeeper in the whole purchase process; checking credit, verifying income, and generally making sure that you are qualified to secure

Refinancing Our House

The other day Kyle wrote a post about how low mortgage rates are right now. We’ve been kicking around the idea of refinancing for a while, and at this point think we’d like to move forward. This is an opportunity to lower our rate significantly. The big questions: 1. Is it worth it – how much of an impact will a lower rates have? For us, the attraction is paying less interest over the life