Phoenix Blogger

ARGH! Anyone confused about the costs and rates you see online for refinancing? I am moving from a 20 year fixed to a thirty year fixed to cash out some equity and put in some home improvements...increase cash flow hopefully but man the rates and closing costs are hard to figure out. I was checking out bankrate.com and if you search for zero point loans you can see a wide assortment of loan rates, which seems reasonable as you would think the market would control rates and if a bank can sell a loan at a higher rate and make more money they will do so, but what confuses me as when you talk to brokers you find out invariably that they are each dealing with a bank that has teh lowest rates in the country and every other broker out there is doing a bait and switch. If the APR standard was setup to lessen confusion between rates, it needs to be revised. It would help if bankrate.com monitored what is posted to their website for some kind of accuracy also. The broker I am dealing with is telling me basically that two or three of the other lower banks listed are lying. I guess the ultimate proof test is to call one of the other banks and ask for a good faith estimate, but the one I did call wanted an application loan fee (refundable on close) of a few hundred bucks. Anyone have any good resource sites they have found?

If you haven't checked out Victor Hanson's latest article here, take five minutes. It is worth the read. I outlined some of what Victor alludes to below in my May post [Ed.: Try not to hurt yourself patting your back]

Had a fun time at my first protest warrior event. We got together to thank the troops for their dedication and service. Nothing major, very low key, but I know we got a lot of positive feedback from the personnel driving by or entering the base. Hats off to Mikefor driving to make the event come together on short notice.
Mike and I discovered we are both techno geeks...of course given Mike's size I kept this observation to myself ;)
Looking forward to next weekend's event.