My last post gave you all the hairy details of our house aquisition last June. This one is all about the way we worked the system like the Gosselins got a great deal on a refinance this year.
Do you like how I hung a picture up to distract from the wallpaper that is still on the upper walls in the stairway?
My 'lingerie artwork' was up for a housewarming party we had, everyone thought it was hilarious. Anyway, our plan to keep the house looking dumpy for the assessor worked, he lowered our assessment by 26k in April! That would translate to a $566 annual savings if property tax rates remain the same this year, which I know isn't happening. We will see what we've saved soon.
Finish removing wallpaper in entry, stairs and upper hallway areas.
Prime, paint these areas including trim.
Change out light fixtures in entry, upstairs bath, downstairs bath.
Stage the master bedroom and guest bedroom.
Stage the living room, dining room and two attached sunporches.
Pray that our city assessment didn't get lowered until after the refinance!
Happily, everything worked out and the credit union we worked with received the inspection report stating that the house was worth 20k more than our new 'lowered' city assessment, and 35k more than we purchased the house for last June! Pretty sweet in the bad housing market, if I do say so myself. We now pay $200 less per month after securing a 4.875 interest rate and eliminating the PMI we had been paying. Plus, our property taxes will go down because we were proactive in getting our assessment lowered while we still had a chance. Since we escrow, this means that hopefully next year our total payment will be even lower. And our closing costs were only $1200 so we have already recouped those costs from our lower payments. Woot!
Other weird stuff the previous owners left here: a single (dirty) men's suit hanging in the master bedroom closet and a clean but taped-shut-like-it's-dirty diaper in the guest room closet. Wha??
Way to work the system! We did some similar finagling to try to get the appraisal up in some cases and down in others. Such a pain!
PS. Do I dare ask how you found out that the taped-shut-like-it's-dirty diaper was in fact clean? Ew!
You know, I just assumed that it was clean because it didn't stink after sitting there for months! But who knows. Either way, I washed up good after tossing it out...gross.
You should put the improvements ... panelling, etc up with velcro ... then you can take it down when you need to for the 'low' look and replace for the 'high' look!!!
Congrats on the assessment and refinancing.
Olive oil and WD-40... awesome and slightly disturbing.
Just looking at some of your older posts. Nice work on lowering your mortgage! I can't wait until we've paid enough on our house to get rid of our PMI. If we ever get around to finishing our basement, that will certainly help!