Has anyone gotten a HARP Mortage?

[dixiegrrrrl]

16. FWIW, here is why I am not re-financing...

8 years of payments have reduced the monthly interest portion to the point where we are seeing our mortgage amount decrease faster and faster.
If I got a re-fi, I would have to start all over again with years of mostly interest payments, very low equity amount,especisally if I were making lower payments than I do now.

Lenders know that most people buy cars and houses with one thing in mind: how much is the monthly payment.
What is not discussed is how much is the total interest over time.
There a lot of payment/interest calulators on the net.

The other thing I did with our mortgage was to insist on a NO pre-payment penalty, so that in the first 5 years I added extra payment to the principal, whcih reduced the principal faster, which reduces the total amount of interest over time.
And NO escrow, which prevent the lender from tacking on extra charges. We pay our own insurance.
Those terms are worth a pile of money to me, so re-fi is not an option for now.
I doubt very much that I could get those terms today, but guess who was willing to give me those terms in
2005???
cause I told them I would probably be re-financing with them in a few years.

Go ahead...take a guess......

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yep,Countrywide.