Friday, October 26, 2012

Refinancing.... Again.

We're in the process of refinancing our house again.  Rates are currently 3.5%, which is over 1.5% lower than our current rate, and we can save something like $30,000 if we can get the lower rate, not to mention saving over $100 per month with a lower payment. Worth the hassle, totally.  I wasn't thrilled about starting over on 30 years again, but they gave us the option of continuing our current payment schedule, just at a lower rate - awesome!
I'm not sure if I've given them a shout out on here, but I have so loved our experience at Citizen's State Bank of Paola.  Our original loan when we bought the house was with Bank of America.  (Boo!  Hiss!)  That was NOT a good experience.  We'd get our monthly statement, and the amount had changed, due to a change in escrow amounts.  Or we'd get a "additional escrow needed immediately" statement.  Or both.  They called all the time to try to get us to refinance, apply for a home equity loan, or open a credit card (not to mention the junk mail).  Whenever I called to talk to them, IF I could get through the phone system, the person couldn't really help, "That's just the way we do things."  We had to pay $70 a month of mortgage insurance (which would pay our mortgage if we didn't - you know, because they can't take the house or anything like that), and kept saying we could take it off after such and such point, but wouldn't do it, even when we had a appraisal that showed we owned over 20% equity.
NOW, when I need something, I call the bank at Paola, a real person answers the phone, and transfers directly to whoever I need to talk to.  In the two plus years we've been there, I've needed something maybe twice, and it was resolved instantly.  No junk mail.  No phone calls.  We do our own escrow (setting money aside to pay yearly taxes and insurance), so there's no surprises.  They carry the loans, and don't sell them to national companies (which is how we ended up with Bank of America, even though we went to a local bank).
So there's my internet shout out.  I love this bank, and I highly recommend them to anyone looking to refinance.

No comments: