re: #1124 gonecamping

I recently refinanced, and the rates are nearly back to where they were before I contemplated. The usual rules on refinancing are all out of whack because the feds are controlling things. Throw in the fact that the lenders fired tons of people to stay in business, and then were handed a massive wave of refinancing when the feds cut interest rates. It’s taking longer for them to complete the paperwork too because of going back to the old way of verifying income, etc., which should never have been abandoned in the first place and is a leading cause for why we’re in this mess in the first place. When you provide easy credit to those who can’t afford homes, you create an artificial demand that cannot be sustained; when the real estate bubble collapses, it becomes a house of cards.

Now, if the rates go up from here, people who decided to take ARMs will find themselves right back in trouble because those low teaser rates will disappear within a few years - and the cycle of woe starts again.

I am also planning on doing a bunch of home improvement projects this spring, and seem to be one of the few people who are intent on keeping the local economy afloat.