1/14/21 Finally Had An Appraisal Done?

     It should be super easy to refinance, I see commercials all the time that it can be done in a couple weeks.  Yet, here we are again, I started looking at refinancing right after Thanksgiving, and we finally got the appraisal done today (1/11/21).  The main reason for trying to refinance is that we did it a few years ago but went to a new 30 year mortgage.  The payment got back under control, we bought the house and originally paid around $2400 a month.  With the cost of property taxes climbing every year, we were soon approaching $3400 a month.  We refinanced to bring it down some, at the time Wife just wanted to sell this house and move back to our original home, which was very nice, but it had about 1/3 the space this one has and we had already outgrown it, back in 2007.  With the refinance that we did a few years ago, we ended up with a payment closer to $2500, and after two years, it is still a manageable $2600, it just creeps up because property taxes keep going up, it doesn't help that we keep voting for new rail systems people don't use, but whatever.

    I was initially told that the appraisal would be done the following week after we started talking to the refinance company, Loan Depot.  That day came and went and we never even got a call.  I texted them to see what was going on and they gave me a name of the appraisal person and was told they would contact me, but they never did.  I eventually asked what's up, but we were in the week of Christmas which I assume was part of the reason for the slowness, add in Covid-19 fears and shit can be extended indefinitely, as long as it isn't a payment from our end, no, those have definite due dates.  Eventually, we got a text from the lady that did the appraisal and said it would be today.  I thought having a couple weeks to clean the house was plenty of time, but man, when the weather isn't right and it's the holidays, it is hard to get excited about cleaning.  Having full trash cans from all the holiday food and gifts and stuff did not help either.

    In the end, we did a minimal amount of cleaning.  Wife kind of cleaned around the front room, we are always piling stuff on the pool table when we bring it into the house.  Sweetie did take some days off and they cleaned their bedroom and their activity room as well.  Overall, the house looked okay, I just feel like we could have done more to make it look nicer.  Right now, we have all the old fence sections laying all over the yard, I wanted to gather them into an organized pile, but it was too freaking cold yesterday, so too bad.

    The lady said the clutter does not affect things, it is mostly the square footage, so even if we had gone crazy and cleaned everything, I don't think much would have changed.  Now we just have to wait and see where our house sits to see if we can proceed.