Refi Complete!

Well, there were a number of hurdles, but my refinance is finally complete.

I have to say, I’m not a huge fan of the brokerage I used.  As of 5 pm the night before my closing, I still didn’t have my HUD1, so I didn’t know how much money I had to bring to the closing.  My closing was scheduled for 9am, which meant that I didn’t have time to get a certified check.  And the brokerage never answered my question as to whether or not a personal check was fine.  I had to bring less than $4000 to the table (a large chunk of that being the already paid tax bill that would be refunded based on my tax estimators), so I crossed my fingers and hoped it all worked out.

And it did.

Amusingly, half an hour after closing, I got a call from my broker asking if I had any questions before closing.  I laughed and reminded her that the closing had already occurred.  Thankfully it all went off without a hitch.

I received my refund for the tax bill last week, and I received confirmation from my old mortgage company that the mortgage was paid in full.

Next month, I make my first payment to the new company.  It was a lot of work, but I’m saving a few hundred dollars a month and something like $90,000 over the life of the loan, and that’s if I don’t make any extra payments.

Ideally, I would be paying the same amount every month and paying down the mortgage much more quickly, but right now, I’m just going to see how my finances play out.  I’d like to be able to use that money to continue the work I’m doing on the house.  At some point, my fence is actually going to fall down and will need to be replaced, for example.