Refi time

So I took it upon myself to take advantage of the low mortgage rates to refinance my Redmond home purchased 18 months ago. I was able to get a hold of a mortgage broker who offered me a no closing cost refi. Of course, all refinances require a new appraisal. Yesturday I found out that my property value had declined a little less than 2%. Which considering the circumstances is really not too bad. For example, Jocelyn and Nick's property go reappraised for 25% less than what they paid for it two years ago.

While I love my current home, there are times where I realize that I signed up for more than I bargained for. My yard is 14k square feet! I have an Asian landscaped yard so with a pond, a fire pit, 6 pear trees, 1 apple tree, 1 blueberry bush, 2 Japanese maples, and other various types of plants. As you can imagine, there are a lot of leaves to clean up. Just this last weekend I spent a couple hours filling up 7 compost bags full of leaves. I still have the entire side of the house to do, which I estimate will take up an additional 20 bags :(

However in hindsight, financially it was a good thing that I did end up selling my previous condo and upgrading as I would have lost of money had I kept the condo. I bought the condo for $186k in 2004 then sold it for $235k in 2010. It is now selling for $155k. I feel really bad for the dude who bought my condo.

Anyways, the refi will drop my monthly payment by a little bit. But over time it will add up to over $2000 a year saved!