Investing General Discussion

Cad said:

Obviously *I* know what that means. Who gives a shit if the underlying loan is sold? Honestly who cares if the servicing is sold either? Oh wow some other name appears on my ACH debit. Who gives a shit.

My point is I seriously doubt he has any idea whether his loan was sold and you can't easily access MERS to even know, often the banks don't even know who owns a particular loan. (Source: have sued many banks.) . On top of that, it makes literally no difference whether your loan is sold or not.

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Well I will say this. I had the same view on the topic you do until my loan was sold to and serviced by a bank that "forgot" to pay my property taxes via escrow twice, tried to pass the penalties on to me via new "escrow increases" (my payment suddenly went from ~2700/mo to ~3200/mo) and then sold the loan off to another company after they failed to pay the property taxes via escrow the second time and never notified the new bank. So after I had settled the original increase as their fault they sold the loan and my payments went back up to the ~3200/mo mark and I had to get into a battle with the new servicer.

It was a fucking mess.

If your loan gets sold to Northpointe Bank... make sure you scrutinize your statements.

And suddenly the new bills were coming from a Rushmore Loan Management and that sounded a lot like collections which had me very worried because Northpointe never notified me they had sold the loan. I even got on the phone with them and when they asked me for my social I copped an attitude, called them scammers, and told them to fuck off... because Northpointe had never notified me.

I think I even mentioned all this in the homeowners thread. It was kinda fucked up.

TJT said:

If the bank forgot to pay your property tax via escrow that would just mean you were on the hook for it in a lump sum wouldn't it?

My loan servicer has changed like 3 times since I bought this house 4 years ago.

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I got sent a delinquency notice with penalties and interest so I then called the bank and had a bunch of back and forth with them to get it sorted out. At first they tried to make me pay it all by raising my monthly payment from ~2700 to ~3200. Eventually they sent the payment from my already funded escrow account and covered the penalties and interest.

My loan changed 4 or 5 times over it's life as well, but this particular bank was a shitshow.

Blazin said:

when it's paid out of escrow do you have any control over when the it is paid? Do they tell you when it's paid or do you have to just monitor the escrow account regularly? Do they escrow home owner's insurance as well?

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It's typically paid semi-annually. We'd get a statement from the county confirming payment. Homeowner's was escrowed as well.

I actually have no idea when they paid my property taxes and I never got any confirmations of payment from the town either. Same with homeowner's insurance.

Oh I hate escrow and how it works. But you can't find a bank/broker that will do a home loan without it around here.

Khane said:

Well I will say this. I had the same view on the topic you do until my loan was sold to and serviced by a bank that "forgot" to pay my property taxes via escrow twice, tried to pass the penalties on to me via new "escrow increases" (my payment suddenly went from ~2700/mo to ~3200/mo) and then sold the loan off to another company after they failed to pay the property taxes via escrow the second time and never notified the new bank. So after I had settled the original increase as their fault they sold the loan and my payments went back up to the ~3200/mo mark and I had to get into a battle with the new servicer.

It was a fucking mess.

If your loan gets sold to Northpointe Bank... make sure you scrutinize your statements.

And suddenly the new bills were coming from a Rushmore Loan Management and that sounded a lot like collections which had me very worried because Northpointe never notified me they had sold the loan. I even got on the phone with them and when they asked me for my social I copped an attitude, called them scammers, and told them to fuck off... because Northpointe had never notified me.

I think I even mentioned all this in the homeowners thread. It was kinda fucked up.

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Yeah been here.. I had a mortgage serviced by Chase, then one day I receive a notice from some company named DovenMuehle that I had missed a payment. Meanwhile my ACH was still sending payments to Chase.. Seems I missed some form letter they mailed me letting me know that my servicer will change, because it looked like every other piece of bullshit free credit card/0% APR loan junk mail I receive every day that goes straight into the recycle bin. Major PITA, and not to mention Dovenmuehle has some ancient fucking website that looks like it was composed with Frontpage '95, and doesn't even support proper integration with financial apps like Mint.

I don't think it's a state law here I just don't think any banks/brokers are willing to allow borrowers to waive escrow around here. May have to do with how much taxes are here compared to a state like Texas and how much more money it allows them to have on their books as a result.

My property taxes are ~7200/yr on a property that appraises at $250k in a very moderately priced area with a relatively middle of the road mill rate (for the state).

I pay my property taxes directly as well and skip escrow. When I got my mortgage and asked to skip escrow they basically said my income/equity was sufficient to get the waiver.

Definitely worth skipping escrow if you can and pay it yourself. Escrow is basically giving your bank or mortgage lender an interest free loan for the year.

Cad said:

I'm not trying to Vinen you here but I don't think it's the amount. My property taxes (and I just paid it... grumble... ) were $35k this year...

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Right but you live in a very ritzy area in a much more expensive house. On the whole property taxes are much lower in Texas than CT. Is there legislation in Texas that prevents banks from refusing escrow waivers? All I know is I could not find a home loan here that would allow me to waive escrow. You probably can if you have leverage (jumbo loan for a large amount with good credit and plenty of collateral). But for every day buyers it doesn't seem to be an option at all.

Khane said:

Right but you live in a very ritzy area in a much more expensive house. On the whole property taxes are much lower in Texas than CT. Is there legislation in Texas that prevents banks from refusing escrow waivers? All I know is I could not find a home loan here that would allow me to waive escrow. You probably can if you have leverage (jumbo loan for a large amount with good credit and plenty of collateral). But for every day buyers it doesn't seem to be an option at all.

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Looks like it mainly is available by putting at least 20% down and paying a slightly larger interest rate. I put 20% down and my lender literally asked me if I wanted to waive escrow. No idea if I ended up paying a higher interest rate though, but I currently pay 3.85% on a 30 year 7/1 ARM.