"Cindy Hamilton" wrote in message
...
On Jan 23, 6:23 pm, Tony Hwang wrote:
Cindy Hamilton wrote:
On Jan 22, 3:15 pm, wrote:

8%? I'm sorry. Mine is currently under 5% - lower than my mortgage,
actually. Of course, it got cut off back when everything hit the fan,
despite the fact that the only time it was ever used was to purchase
the house. Y'see, I live in one of those areas where houses are so
silly expensive that it made more sense to use a HELOC to allow me to
purchase the house, rather than waiting until I'd saved enough for a
20% down payment. through the weirdnesses of our tax code, I'm paying
off the HELOC faster than I'd have been adding to my savings account
had I continued to rent, with the added benefit that i'm living in a
house that I own, so I can improve it at my leisure rather than having
to wait.

Well, it's a fixed-term loan rather than a HELOC. My 15-year fixed-
rate
primary mortgage is about 5.25%. I'm about halfway through it, and
I'm really
starting to see some progress on the principal when I get my monthly
mortgage statement. The equity loan will be paid off this June.

Houses here (Ann Arbor, MI) are not that expensive. The average is
about
$200,000, give or take a few tens of thousands. That's usually a
three-bedroom
with two baths.

I don't mess around with revolving credit where my house is at stake.
Too
much risk for this old Midwesterner.

Cindy Hamilton

Whoa!
200K for a house?

Actually, for about that much money I got a three-bedroom house
(one bath), built of concrete block, faced three sides with granite
and
one with brick on two acres. It was built in 1948 by a mason, so his
first choice wasn't stick construction (which is much more common
around here.) I wish he'd put a few more pieces of granite in his
lunch
pail, so that the back could be granite, too

Here's a picture taken in early spring 2000:
http://www.adi.com/~hamilton/house/o...OfProperty.jpg
It shows a little less than half of our spread.

Also came with a detached concrete block
two-car garage and a 16x16 wooden shed (probably built from a kit).
Dozens of trees. Five miles from my job; a little less than that to
my
husband's, giving each of us a ten-minute commute. Good jobs: I'm
a programmer; he's a... well, his associate's degree was in electro-
optics,
but he does the work of an engineer much of the time.

I just don't understand why everybody (and their employers) isn't
flocking to southeast Michigan. It's a great place to live.

Cindy Hamilton

For that, we can't even find a 2 bedroom condo any
where in the city. Average house price here is 470K CAD. Mine is about
twice that, of course I did not pay that much back in '94 when I had it
built to my specs. I don't have mortgage. Just a line of credit against
the house @2.75%. Just as a rainy day fund. One thing I notice is bank
wants me to draw from it. If the account stays inactive, they don't like
it.

I'll stay in upstate NY. 130K for a 3br/2bath with 24x24 detached two-story
garage on a couple of acres. Can see one or two neighbors' houses, but only
when there are no leaves on the trees. (they all have 50 acres or more).
Plus, it's only 3 hours to the garment district in NYC which is practically
a requirement for my business.