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Amanda’s on her way to put the deposit down on our new wedding location at Stoneybrook West. After taking a hard look at out budget and the cost of the wedding that we were planning, we realized that we needed to search for other alternatives. We looked into getting married in Vegas, a small wedding on the beach, and other hotels around the area. Just as a shot, we thought we’d check out Stoneybrook since it’s close by our new home. They have everything wee need and the location is very well kept (obviously, it is a golf course). As an additional bonus, they are also very affordable! We’re both excited to have this detail now settled and out of the way. Now we can work on the rest of the planning and preparations…

Welcome back!

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It’s been awhile since my last post. We’ve been a little busy with stressing ourselves out over wedding details, house stuff, work, etc…Also we took a little time off this past weekend to visit the annual Florida Strawberry Festival with some friends. We had a pretty good time, even though the festival was kind of unimpressive. 90% of that whole festival was just food vendors! There were some rides, and the rest was sort of an agricultural display. I was looking forward to the strawberry shortcake, but honestly, Amanda makes far better strawberry shortcake.

I visited the house this morning and it’s come along pretty well so far. The floors are done, both the wood flooring and the carpeting. All the faucets are installed. The dishwasher was installed. Airconditioning has been completed with the installation of the thermostats and air-filter monitor. They have permanent power to the house (the meter has been installed). I put up some of the pictures I took before the weekend, I didn’t go into the house this morning because the carpeting was just installed and I didn’t feel like taking my shoes off. Basically they need to install the door to the pool bath, poor a concrete slab under that door, replace the door handles and hinges, fix a couple cable outlets, and finish the study and we should be pretty well off. I’ll get an electrical tester to test the outlets the next time I go there.

Well, I finally received confirmation on a closing date for the house. March 22nd for the walk-through, and March 28th for the closing (assuming EVERYTHING gets fixed). I have the rate lock for the mortgage, but I’m going to call tomorrow morning and ask her to check her rates again. According to bankrate.com, the average rates for 5/1 interest-only ARMs dropped by 2 basis points to 4.82 today. The highest rate was 6.38. I think they can do better for me than what they’re currently offering.

Here’s a link to a 360 degree tour of the home we are building, this might give a better feel for the place than the construction photos do.

I called the M/I Homes lender today to see if she had any idea as to what time frame we are looking at for closing, as well as to inquire about having the loan setup without an escrow. Last time I spoke with her was Feb 2nd and we were looking at 6% interest on the 80% mortgage (we’re financing 100% using 80/20 split). Apparently for whatever reason, she did not lock that rate at that time. In order for her to do a lock, she needs approval from the builder, which they did not grant. So today she tells me that the rate went to 5.875%. I told her to do the lock now, as I guess the builder has us confirmed for the “March time frame”. I was all excited over this news, until she called me back 10 minutes later to tell me that she quoted me the wrong rates for my type of loan, they’re actually at 6.3%, a $94/mo increase in payments. Not a good thing.

She was able to set the loan up without the escrow, which is good. I would rather take the extra money each month and keep it in a savings account accrueing interest. I wanted to do this with the mortgage on my first home, but Regions Mortgage won’t let me remove the escrow once the mortgage is setup. So they have $1000 of my money right now that does nothing for me. I could use ING DIRECT earning 2.6% APY, or even my newly opened Emigrant Direct savings earning 3.0% APY. I’d like to use Emigrant and get a higher rate, but I can’t figure out how to transfer money back and forth between my checking account. ING can set it up to be automatic. If you’re looking to stash some money someplace, these are the best deals around for money market accounts with no minimums (ok, well $1).