Sticker Shock

Sticker shock alert!




Yesterday I received the Good Faith Estimate from my local bank which is handling the refinance of my mortgage.



It never ceases to amaze me at the amount of closing costs on real estate transactions. Yesterday was no exception.



For the third time in less than four years I’m entering a real estate transaction on my home here in the wonderful, glorious state of Delaware.



My first transaction was April 17th, 2006. That was when I purchased my newly custom built home here on the eastern shore of Sussex County, Delaware, two miles from the Broadkill River and another two miles from the Delaware Bay.

At that time my mind was preoccupied by the fact that I had not sold my home in Pennsylvania which I had planned to do to pay for my new home in Delaware. You know the old adage “The best laid plans of mice and men…….?” Well, plans did not go the way I thought. I didn’t pay much attention to the figures on the settlement sheet. I just wanted to get the transaction over with. Money was flying back and forth and I couldn’t do much about it. I was more concerned with selling my house in Pennsylvania.

My second transaction was November 17th, 2006. I had finally sold my home in Pennsylvania but for a LOT LESS than I had planned to. Again, the old adage “The best laid plans of mince and men……” Since I had sold my home in Pennsylvania I had to refinance my mortgage with what proceeds I did get from the sale of my house. Instead of paying off my house, I now had a mortgage for the first time since 1979. Not what I had planned but I had no choice. Again, I’m paying for a title search and all the other charges in the hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars that appear on a settlement sheet. I now have a mortgage that will be paid off when I’m 95 years old. Good luck.

Now here we are today. I have accumulated enough greenbacks to pay down some of my mortgage in order to have a lower monthly mortgage payment. This is necessary because I am living on a fixed monthly income of Social Security and a few pensions from my previous life as a banker. I was paying my mortgage payment with my part-time job as a hotel front desk clerk but my hours have been cut back because folks aren’t traveling that much these days to take advantage of our wonderful accommodations in downtown Lewes and all that historic town has to offer. Besides, I don’t plan to be working at the hotel until I’m 95 years old. But you never know. I’ll work until I drop or they tell me to hit the road.

So here we are now at my third real estate transaction in less than four hears. I’m going to refinance my mortgage. Yesterday I received the Good Faith Estimate. STICKER SHOCK! Again I’m paying for that title search. This time around it’s $950 smackeroos! How much can be going on with my title? How many times does it have to be searched?

I checked on the Internet with that very question and the answer is: every time a purchase or refinance is done the title has to be searched. It makes sense.

I have an appraisal charge. I also have a survey charge of $354. Survey? WTF? That’s a new one. I didn’t even have a survey charge on my last refinance settlement.


Well, e-mails were sent to the bank handling my refinance with these questions.

Of course it didn’t help to read in the newspaper last week that Bank of America (my mortgager) is considering reducing outstanding principal balances on many of their outstanding mortgage loans in order to help those individuals who are near foreclosure.

While I understand the thinking behind such an action (to prevent foreclosures and those people losing their homes) somehow it doesn’t seem fair to those of us who did the right thing and paid our mortgages on time. But then who said life was fair?


I’m thankful that I have this beautiful home in wonderful Sussex County, Delaware near the ocean. I’m thankful that I have the income to continue to live in this home without the threat of foreclosure. But something doesn’t seem quite right here.

Now if you can excuse me, I have to get ready to go to work at the hotel today. I have to pay for that survey.

Reality is Settling In

The reality of the condition of our former home is starting to settle in now. Back when we sold our home in November of 2006 I would never have predicted that our former home would end up as a "Grey Gardens" home. It is ironic because just a few weeks ago I saw the documentary about Grey Gardens from one of my Netflix DVD rentals.

Bill has always been upset that we left our home in Pennsylvania because he treasured the privacy that it offered him. Over the twenty five years that we lived there, he put his heart and soul into building the sun room and the massive brick edifice in the front of the building. It was heartbreaking for Bill to see the neglect of the property over the last three years.



Bill builds drainage ditches. They were all clogged with debris. The roof gutters had weeds growing out of them from the accumulation of three years worth of debris.



My fishponds that I lovingly took care of faithfully every spring, summer and fall were loaded with dead leaves. Incredibly, one of the fish ponds still had two goldfish in them. One was a large goldfish. I wonder if it was a survivor from the original goldfish I had in the ponds when I left in November of 2006. I felt like I betrayed them.

Bill said he wouldn't have felt as bad if the new owners had taken pride in the property and improved upon what we had already done. But apparently all they did was use the property and now they're going to move on.



It's hard for me to understand how an owner can even put up a property for sale with all the overgrown weeds and trash laying around. The house is dirty inside. I remember well what one real estate agent told me after one of my sixty plus showings of the house when I was trying to sell it. He said that he had never in his twenty five years of selling houses seen one as clean as mine for a showing.

Bill and I busted our behinds making the house immaculate prior to each showing. I always made sure I had fresh flowers throughout the house before any showing. We had all the lights on and soft music playing throughout the house. Both fish ponds were well stocked with fish and plants and had clear water recirculation through them. The fish were happy. Bill and I both kept the grounds around the house mowed, trimmed and bursting with colorful flowers. In retrospect it was all to no avail. We finally sold the house but I don't think it made a bit of difference how we presented the house. All the potential buyers were interested in was how low could they go in the price. The blood was in the water and I was on a fool not to recognize it.



The new owner has the property up for sale for $549,000. I sold it to him in November of 2006 for $500,000. He originally offered me $450,000. When I first put the house on the market in January of 2006 I was asking $695,000. The house was worth $625,000. I should have taken my real estate agent's advice and started at $650,000 but I didn't and I paid the price for it. What is ironic now is that the new owner will probably get close to his asking price. I would not be surprised at all. What surprises me is how anyone could take a beautiful property like we sold to him and totally neglect it for three years and then have the nerve to put it on the market in the state that it is in and ask a higher price. He has something that I don't have, chutzpah.