Do you escrow your property taxes and/or homeowner's insurance?

[shamrock30]

Around here, as far as I can tell, there isn't any way to avoid it unless you are willing to pay a higher interest rate on your mortgage. We have far more than 20% equity in our house.

 

[HsvTeacher]

We don't use an escrow account for our property taxes and insurance. Since our mortgage lender doesn't require it, I prefer to pay them myself. That being said, we have about 50% equity and a low interest rate, too.

 

[eeyorethegreat]

Our first mortgage as through Farmer's Home (USDA_RHS) We paid out insurance and taxes on our own. Escrow was not available. When we refinanced to a regualr mortgage the esscrow was required. Though we "could" earn some interest, like others said rates are so low, the amount we would make on it in interest in a year is pretty low. It is convienent to have everything taken care of through our payments. Thus far we have not had issues with the (local) bank sending out payment to the town or insurance co late.

 

[Darcy03231]

We escrow. One time when we refinanced I decided not to escrow as we're really good about managing money. I figured out how much we needed each month for taxes and insurance and when I made the mortgage payment I wold put that amount in savings. Well I thought DH was going to have a stroke when I took the money out to pay the taxes. He absolutely hates to see money go out of the savings account once it goes in. While he could understand the concept of it, the fact that a large sum of money left the account really bothered him. When we refinanced I went back to escrowing. I earn interest on the escrow balance and since we've been doing it one year we were a bit short on the escrow because our taxes went up, but otherwise they've been pretty much right on.