Appraisal Anticipation

We had an appraisal done on Monday. I'm now waiting on pins and needles to find out what the numbers are. It's almost like playing "Deal or No Deal", I'm hoping that the case/house I'm holding is worth a Cool Mil. What do you think? Is this house worth $1million? I'm sure it is!!!! THIS house could pass the appraisal with flying colors...um, numbers?!? But we are awaiting the magic number on my OTHER house:

Yes, the smaller, more quaint house that we sometimes live in...just to keep us humble. :P See, in 2007 we had a pool installed. In late 2008 we got our new tax assessment....Wow! What a difference a pool will make on your taxes. So, our house value jumped up. Not that I'm complaining. ( To have your house actually go up in value these days is a wonderful thing!!!) But our escrow account wasn't anticipating the extra taxes, which equals extra money we have to have set aside in the acount. So now we have to pay $250more a month on our mortgage to make up for the escrow shortage-for this year and next. Lovely!!! We really weren't anticipating that either. It's not like we HAVE loads of money left over at the end of the month to begin with. Ya know what I mean?!! So we called our mortgage company to see if they would drop our PMI. We knew we were close to the 20% mark if not over it in paying down our mortgage. Seems that they don't automatically drop the PMI. You have to QUALIFY to have the PMI dropped. EVEN if you have paid off 20% of your loan, they now want to make sure that your house will sell for 25% more than what you owe, before they will cancel your PMI. Which is where the appraisor comes in. We had to fork over $350 for an appraisal (their choice of who). If our house is worth 25% more than what we owe, we can drop our PMI. Thereby, recouping the appraisal fee back in roughly 2 months by the drop in our mortgage payment without the PMI. Then we will only have to pay $150 more a month on mortgage. If we don't hit the magic number, THEN we are out the $350 AS WELL as paying $250 more a month. So you can see why we are sitting on pins and needles. The appraisor told us today, that house values are dropping and he can't get folks what they need in a lot of cases. Seems like a lot of folks are sitting in the same boat....seems like there aren't enough life jackets to go around for all of us. Like another remake of "The Titantic." "My heart will go on and oooonnnn"..(That's me- singing Celine Dion:)...hope I don't end up floating at sea on a stinkin iceberg. Oh, wait a minute....maybe we DO want to be floating on the iceberg?! Or do I want to be in the rowboat?! HOW long can I tread water at sea anyway?! Wait....This isn't a good analogy.....nevermind.

But anyways, we hope that the improvements we have made around here will bump up the house value. That way we can drop the PMI and not pay as much more a month as we are now. Anyone else confused at this point? Howie? Do I deal or no deal?! Regis? Can I phone a friend? Vanna/Pat? Can I Buy a vowel? Where was I... Oh yeah, it's all about the numbers at this point. But I'm really not THAT worried about the numbers. I was sure to point out to the appraisor (when he was here) that we have a guest house that is not on the tax roll:

Yeah, I think this little baby should bump the number waaaaaaay past the point where it needs to be! Now, let's hope the appraisor thinks the same!!!!