I've been eyeing new Christmas lights for the last few years. I love the energy efficiency of LEDs, but I couldn't bear the idea of throwing away perfectly good incandescent ones. I tried to donate our old lights but I couldn't find a donation center willing to take them. It turns out that Christmas lights are synonymous with household fires and the centers didn't want to take on the risk of selling them to anyone. So every time my husband and I passed by Christmas displays I'd point out the LED version and say "one day we need to make the switch."
Well that time has finally come. It turns out that Home Depot is holding a Christmas Light Trade-In now through November 15th. If you take in your old, incandescent strands they'll take $3 off your next purchase of LED lights (up to five strands).
At my local Home Depot the customer service representative told me to take the old Christmas lights up to the register along with the new lights I wanted to purchase. The cashier counted each incandescent strand, (five in total), and deducted $3 from each of the five boxes I purchased. Just like that I walked out of Home Depot with brand new LED Christmas lights and managed to send my old ones off to be recycled. Each box was less than $3.
I know some people are skeptical of whether or not companies actually recycle, but here are the details according to the Home Depot ad:How Lights Are Recycled:
The light bulb coupler and the socket plug are manually clipped. Three byproducts result and four categories of raw materials. Each byproduct is independently shredded for separation, returning glass HDPE plastics, and non-ferrous copper as well as ferrous steel. The prepared separated raw materials are then sent to licensed smelters for re-casting or re-molding, all in accordance with local, state and Federal statutes.
I'm really happy my husband and I made the switch.
Just a few of my favorite posts and articles from the last two weeks:
I picked up seven games from Toys-R-Us today including Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, Hi Ho Cherry-O, Memory, Cooties, Don't Break the Ice and Don't Spill the Beans for $3.99 each. For spending $25 on Hasbro games I immediately received back a $10 gift card that is valid through December. I also mailed off a rebate for $2 on each game, for a total of $14. After subtracting the rebate and gift card from the total I spent only $3.93 on all seven games. I plan to donate three or four of the games to Toys-for-Tots. The rest will be shipped down to our beach house for renters to enjoy.
A few days ago my husband and I were shocked by an unbelievably low appraisal on a small piece of property in North Carolina. After inquiring about the property and submitting a bid we contacted a lender to apply for a loan. The lender immediately hired an appraisal company to value the property. While I thought the seller's price might be a bit higher than the appraisal I was shocked to find out that the vacant lot appraised for $100,000 less than our offer.
It is my understanding that appraisers search for real estate sales that follow specific guidelines. I thought appraisals were typically based on sales within a one mile radius that are less than 12 months old. This was not the case with our appraisal. The appraiser compared our lot with sales on properties that are ten miles away and over a year old.
We're looking to purchase a waterfront property in an area with very little vacant land. Over the years the majority of lots in communities in and around our area have been built upon. Rather than looking at all land sales within a one mile radius of our home, the appraiser looked only for sales of waterfront properties. He had to go 10 miles away to find sales on vacant waterfront lots and found only three within the last year and half. He used those three properties as the comparables in his appraisal.
Of course, as anyone knows, you cannot compare lots that are over ten miles away from one another. Heck, in our neighborhood in Maryland the price of houses in our immediate community ranges between $400,000 to $850,000. If you walk down the street and into the next community, (less than half a mile away), you won't find a home worth more than $300,000. If a few blocks can cause that much variation in price you know that it is impossible to compare properties that are over ten miles away.
So what can you do about a low appraisal? Well, in our case very little. Our lender will not accept independent appraisals, so our only option was to refute the valuation the original appraiser provided.
We provided detailed documentation to the appraiser, including a number of properties in the area that sold for $100,000 to $150,000 more than the valuation he provided. We explained that sales that are more than ten miles away and over a year old are not a reflection of the current real estate market in our community.
Of course, just as I expected the appraiser refuted each of our points and explained that the lot had to be compared to waterfront property and that none of the recent sales in our community were waterfront. Hmmm, that's funny, because usually waterfront views increase the value of a property, yet this waterfront property is valued at nearly half of some of those lots.
Honestly, I didn't expect the appraiser to change his valuation. His number is so off the mark that he would look like a complete goon if he went back and revised his original estimation. It turns out that the appraiser is a trainee that is from a community far away from the lot in question. Odds are that he is both unfamiliar with the appraisal process and our community.
So where does that leave us. Well, the lender certainly won't provide us a with a loan large enough to fulfill our needs. They will provide us with only a 66% loan on the property valuation, which is quite a bit less than we require.
At this point it is fair to say that the lender will not further decrease his price. He dropped $35,000 off his asking price already, so if we wish to proceed we need to explore other financing options.
I wonder how many times an appraiser revises his valuation. Based on this experience I would imagine that it happens very infrequently.
If anyone out there has applied for a mortgage with ING Direct would you mind posting your thoughts here. A very kind reader named Evy left me a comment, so I took a look this evening. Their mortgage rates are rock bottom but they are not fixed for the life of the loan. I'd love to hear from any of you that might have gone through the ING process and actually acquired a mortgage.
After much debate it looks like my husband and I will refinance both of our properties. For the time being cash flow is the most important factor in our decision. I plan to call our lender tomorrow to refinance both of our homes to 15 year mortgages. This means extending our current mortgage by an additional six years, but interest rates are so ridiculously low that we think it makes more sense to stash the cash or invest it. Our decision isn't set in stone just yet, but I'm pretty certain we'll pull the trigger on this one.
My husband and I are considering refinancing our 15 year mortgage and I'm unbelievably torn over the decision. The change in interest rates, (from 5 to 4.5%), will decrease our monthly payment by roughly $375 a month. While the boost in monthly cash flow will certainly help us meet our savings goals, I'm not fond of shelling out money for closing costs or extending the life of our loan.
Up until now we've been paying our mortgage bi-weekly, which means we are a few months ahead of our initial payoff schedule. In fact, if we continued to pay bi-weekly our mortgage would be paid in full in 13.7 years rather than 15. We've held the mortgage for roughly a year and half, so refinancing to another 15 year mortgage will push the payoff of our mortgage by at least two years. If we leave the mortgage alone it will be paid in full by the time I reach 45. If we refinance I'll be at least 47.
I've run a bunch of different calculations and can't seem to find a conclusive answer on whether or not to refinance the loan. Some calculations seem to think we'll break even over the life of the loan, because the decreased mortgage rate will make up for the extended time period, while others seem to think we'll lose a few thousand dollars because the change in interest rate isn't significant enough to make up for the closing costs and other mortgage related expenses.
This will be the second time we've refinanced this particular mortgage. The first time around we paid off a big chunk of the principal and shrunk both the interest rate and term. It felt great moving from a 30 year jumbo to a 15 year conforming loan. This time, while the mortgage rate will decrease ever so slightly, I'm not certain that I'm willing to sign up for another 15 year mortgage. I hate the idea of extending the clock on something I want to pay off so badly.
I've been eyeing new Christmas lights for the last few years. I love the energy efficiency of LEDs, but I couldn't bear the idea of throwing away perfectly good incandescent ones. I tried to donate our old lights but I couldn't find a donation center willing to take them. It turns out that Christmas lights are synonymous with household fires and the centers didn't want to take on the risk of selling them to anyone. So every time my husband and I passed by Christmas displays I'd point out the LED version and say "one day we need to make the switch."
