www.romanvenable.net: Clark's Weblog
All Books Conversant Family Huh? Ideas Investing Me Music News Newton MacOS X Politics RSS Sites Software Technology Toys Updates Work
XHTML 1.0? Not Yet
I haven't been posting much to this weblog recently. It's a combination of things, really. I haven't had much to say, and I've been trying to think of reasons why I need a new PowerMac G5. I have an 800 MHz Titanium Powerbook. It's a little over a year old and I like the portability. All I really do any more is e-mail spam filtering and web browsing. I put home movies on DVD with my Phillips DVD recorder and don't really have time to sit down and use iDVD to make slick titles anyways (even if a G5 would let me make those slick titles a little faster). If any body has ideas about why I must buy a G5, please let me know so I can think about other things.
Ever see those commercials from LendingTree.com where bankers compete for your home loan? Well, I tried it, and they do. My big accomplishment for the day is finding a 20 year fixed rate mortgage for 4.5% (that's right: four point five percent) from Olympic Funding.
In talking to the representative, I learned that they only make about five offers a day rather than 30 (by using filters for credit ratings) so that they can follow up personally. The fact that their rate was the best didn't hurt either. I won't be saving much money from month to month, but I'll be paying our house off in twenty years instead of thirty.
Last year, we refinanced with a mortgage broker, Dan the Mortgage Man. Mistake. He put is into a loan with an early repayment penalty to get a lower rate and didn't tell us about it (yes, I should have read the contract). Basically, if we refinance within the first five years, we'd have to pay six months worth of interest as a penalty. Ouch.
I called the lender we would owe the penalty to to see if they would waive it if we refinanced with them. The answer was 'I'll have to check.' Wrong answer. Goodbye, Countrywide. Besides, their rate was in the high fives.
"The shortest and surest way to live with honour in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be; and if we observe, we shall find, that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice of them." -Socrates