Saturday, February 09, 2008

Absence Excused?


Sorry for my absence, in the last week my In-laws came and went and we decided to move. No, we didn't move this week, we just decided to.

The three of you that read my blog may remember this. The friends in the house ended up staying and breaking up, getting back together, breaking up, and then getting engaged this last Christmas. They got married yesterday and are moving to DC for real this time on the 19th.

Sooo... we'll be starting moving in to the house on the 20th. This is, of course, in the middle of trying to get married in April. I'm making our invitations by hand, which is involving a lot of cutting things out and putting them together, etc.

I'm also refinancing my house in Washington. I'm really excited about this for several reasons. Firstly because when we bought the house we financed 100% of it and had a first and second mortgage. The first mortgage is at 6.9% and the second is at 11.25%. We're rolling it all into one mortgage at 6.875% and the payment is going to be about $250 less than the total of the 1st and 2nd payments. The other reason I'm ecstatic about the refinance is that I HATE my current mortgage company.

I really don't hate many things or people. I don't believe in holding on to anger and hate because it will ultimately make me an angry and hateful person. But Option One Mortgage Corporation sucks big time. I worked in the real estate industry for about 8 years before moving to Key West, and am familiar with many different mortgage companies and programs. On the closing end I was a big fan of OOMC, there loans were very easy to close and their funding department was very easy to work with. Their "Customer Service" however, leaves MUCH to be desired. Moving to Key West was complicated in the home-ownership category. I didn't want to sell the house, so I managed to find a couple of renters.

With landladyship comes the assumption that there will be a late rent paid once in awhile. In the 2+ years that we've owned the house, I ended up making my mortgage payment on the 16th ONE TIME. That was in February 2007. In the year since, beginning on the first of the month, I get at least 3 phone calls a DAY from OOMC "reminding" me that my payment is due on the first and late after the 15th. EVERY DAY. And then when I try to tell these people I am well aware and remind them that I have made every payment since February 2007 well before the 15th, it turns out I'm talking to someone in India that doesn't have any control over ANYTHING.

Needless to say I am totally sick of the harassment. This is why I'm willing to deal with the stress of refinancing my house from across the country at the same time I'm getting married.

Today is my one day off until next weekend, and I'm going to try to do some packing and cleaning and invitation-ing. As soon as I'm done watching Rock of Love 2.

2 comments:

Roxy said...

Nice work, Reesie. I love it when a refinance goes in your favor!!

Can't wait to see you in April.

Anonymous said...

I hope your Florida friends will step up and help with the heavy lifting.

Man, has the mortgage business taken a PR battering, or what? My sister's in the biz and she's taking a lot of shit right now — she's getting lumped in with all those subprime assholes who promised fixed-rate loans but slyly maneuvered them into crappy ARMs.