On Fri, 07 Apr 2017 23:05:04 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 7 Apr 2017 11:29:50 -0500, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 4/6/2017 7:43 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 6 Apr 2017 15:41:44 -0500, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 4/6/2017 2:12 PM, wrote:

Lots of rich folks (and businesses) have mortgages that they could pay off
this afternoon if they wanted to.

Oh, hell, I could have done that some time back but why bother?


To keep from having to make a money transfer or write another check.
Even automatic transfers can screw up. And if you are paying interest
at all it is costing you money to keep the mortgage.

Sure, my payment to the power company can screw up, too. So what? The
cost of money is so low, it doesn't matter.

Our builder knocked an additional $5K off the price of our house for
paying cash plus no extra expense for mortgage insurance, or mandatory
flood insurance.

Why did your builder care?

The builder does not have to pay extra points for loan qualification.


Whether you have a mortgage or not, it's
all cash to him.

More or less, builders pay a lot for certain additions of difficulty to
get loans added in the mix.

I can't parse the above sentence.

There is no mortgage insurance unless you have more
house than you can afford.

Unless you finance 80% or more IIRC.

What I said. ;-)

If you're in a flood plane, you're stupid
if you don't have flood insurance. Don't you have fire insurance?

I do not have fire insurance specifically, I have home owners insurance
which covers most anything except flood.

I'll bet it doesn't cover earthquakes (earth movement) either.

Every one is in a flood plane, some 500 year, 100 year, etc.

Not true.

I am in
the 500 IIRC and buy the insurance anyway, relatively cheap. My
precious home was in a cheap zone until it was rezoned, that can happen
any time and if it happens and you still have a mortgage you may have to
get flood insurance. If you don't the flood insurance the mortgage
company will get it for you.

So?

My precious home went from about $260 per year to $3600 for flood
insurance. That was just after Katrina. Had I still had a mortgage my
payments would have gone up $300 per month.

If you have a mortgage you may incur more liabilities than just the loan.

So you're saying that you would go without flood insurance? So you're
self-insuring.
If I lived in West Montrose or Bridgeport I'd have flood insurance
(many houses less than 15 feet above the river) Up here in North
Waterloo paying extra for flood insurance wouldn't make a lot of
sense, sitting on the top of the hill over 100 ft above the river with
several thousand acres significantly lower. Now if lightning required
extra coverage, THAT might make sense. Even wind damage. We do get the
odd twister., being just off the edge of Ontario's Tornado Alley, and
some pretty vicious ice and wind storms every 5 years or so.

It makes sense to pay a bit more for "broad form" coverage instead of
"named perils". "Comprehensive" covers more on contents etc, and sewer
backup isn't covered on either broad form or comprehensive from most
companies, but so far is not a terribly expensive add-on. This may
change as the losses climb.

I'm about 400 miles (over 300 anyway) from the Charlevois fault that
runs from montreal through ottawa to temiskaming., which is the only
known active fault in the east., so earthquake insurance isn't common,
or terribly expensive.