Homeowners - Check Your Mortgage Escrow Balance

[Tina]

Have you checked your escrow balance lately? My property taxes took a serious dive this past year due to the decline in values. I noticed that my escrow balance was pretty high on a recent statement. I just called Wells Fargo and they are not only lowering my payment by $115 per month, but I'm getting a nearly $500 refund check. I know my mortgage company does this automatically every Spring, but why wait? I can have my money now instead of in April. Check yours!

 

[Schachteles]

Have you checked your escrow balance lately? My property taxes took a serious dive this past year due to the decline in values. I noticed that my escrow balance was pretty high on a recent statement. I just called Wells Fargo and they are not only lowering my payment by $115 per month, but I'm getting a nearly $500 refund check. I know my mortgage company does this automatically every Spring, but why wait? I can have my money now instead of in April. Check yours!

WOW lucky you...even though our housing values have gone in the toilet they somehow to make sure that my property taxes don't follow!

Can't win! Enjoy your extra $$.

 

[travelbug]

WOW lucky you...even though our housing values have gone in the toilet they somehow to make sure that my property taxes don't follow!

Same here!

OP, thanks for the tip though. Enjoy that extra wiggle room in the budget!

 

[pixiewings71]

Ours is about $1700 too high right now...we had a house fire and our ins. premiums shot up, well so did our house payment last year, and then our ins. premium dropped by half so the mortgage company has a bunch of our money......I think I'll have DBF call them, it's in his name so they won't talk to me, maybe we can get some back...hmmmm

 

[MissMichelle]

Thats great for you! Hopefully if things keep dropping around here I'll eventually be saving $$ also, but since i just bought the house 6 weeks ago itsa not in the near future.

 

[mamalle]

wow that is nice for you. Unfortunately for me- our property value took a dive and our taxes went up another $250 per year..

 

[Piecey]

I checked.

I totally don't get escrow, apparently. Ours was a mess, though.
I spent an hour on the phone with the bank/insurance company because they had their wires majorally crossed. They were scheduled to send me a refund check but at the same time they weren't going to pay the insurance company.

What a mess! Thanks for having me look.
Now if I can only figure out what else is going on with the dang account I'd be a happy girl.

 

[StephMK]

I checked.

I totally don't get escrow, apparently. Ours was a mess, though.
I spent an hour on the phone with the bank/insurance company because they had their wires majorally crossed. They were scheduled to send me a refund check but at the same time they weren't going to pay the insurance company.

What a mess! Thanks for having me look.
Now if I can only figure out what else is going on with the dang account I'd be a happy girl.

Oh my gosh, what a cute baby you have!!!


Thanks for the reminder! Property sales are down so I'll be watching closely when they send out tax notices in a few weeks. I know they don't totally correlate but still... They don't review our escrow til August so it's good to know you can call earlier to get the adjustment!

 

[Jenn4615]

unfortunatly my house is worth less...but they managed to raise my property taxes... gotta love Maryland! UGH

 

[G's mommy]

Same here in GA, values down and my property taxes were $300 more than last year!!

 

[stitchlovestink]

unfortunatly my house is worth less...but they managed to raise my property taxes... gotta love Maryland! UGH

Same here. Our county has one of the worst rates of increase in MD. They can increase the property taxes way more than any of the other counties around us. why?

 

[disneychrista]

Not sure how it works in other states/areas but here you ask the assessor to reasses the value if you can show proof that the value of your home is significantly lower.

For me I purchased our first home in April, for about 100k less than previously assessed and now am waiting for them to adjust the taxes and send a refund.

 

[DawnM]

Not here. They reassess every several years. The last assessments were in 2008 (early in the year) and when you call the office the recording says, "We will not do any reassessing of homes assessed in 2008." It goes on to say something about declining values are not their problem (although they word it a bit nicer than that!)

But I am not really complaining.....taxes are far lower here. But we pay almost $800 more per year than we did before 2008.

In California taxes were based on your purchase price and were never reassessed.

Dawn

Not sure how it works in other states/areas but here you ask the assessor to reasses the value if you can show proof that the value of your home is significantly lower.

For me I purchased our first home in April, for about 100k less than previously assessed and now am waiting for them to adjust the taxes and send a refund.

 

[Swimalie]

You know you don't have to do escrow. We never have and never will. We pay our own taxes, twice a year and pay our own insurance 8 times a year. Insurance comes with our auto bill so we pay them both at the same time - pay 4 months, get 2 off.

We don't do escrow because we figure why give the bank our money when we can have it sit in our account and have it earn us interest. We always have the money to pay our taxes (which are about $3700 a year) in the bank. Then we don't have to worry about them taking too much or not enough out and our mortgage payment each month is lower, too. When looking for a mortgage company, we won't use one that charges a fee for not doing escrow. Some will and if they do, they don't get our business.

 

[Tina]

You know you don't have to do escrow. We never have and never will. We pay our own taxes, twice a year and pay our own insurance 8 times a year. Insurance comes with our auto bill so we pay them both at the same time - pay 4 months, get 2 off.

We don't do escrow because we figure why give the bank our money when we can have it sit in our account and have it earn us interest. We always have the money to pay our taxes (which are about $3700 a year) in the bank. Then we don't have to worry about them taking too much or not enough out and our mortgage payment each month is lower, too. When looking for a mortgage company, we won't use one that charges a fee for not doing escrow. Some will and if they do, they don't get our business.

You are correct. On my previous two homes, we did not have an escrow. However, I bought my current home after a divorce and decided it would be easier for me to manage on one salary with an escrow. I didn't want to run into trouble and not have the tax money when due. I'm now glad I did that because I have run into problems in the past two years, but the one thing I've kept up with consistently is my mortgage payments. If I had the money sitting in savings, I would have been tempted to pull it for other things. Some people are really good at keeping a leash on that money, but I know that I am not.

 

[skw444]

Not sure how it works in other states/areas but here you ask the assessor to reasses the value if you can show proof that the value of your home is significantly lower.
QUOTE]

You can do this in GA. I live in Gwinnett County and our house values were reassessed and my taxes went down $500. Unfortunately, they just approved an increase in the millage rate so we'll be getting an additional bill in January for the extra amount owed, but it will still be less then what I paid last year.

 

[Swimalie]

Not sure how it works in other states/areas but here you ask the assessor to reasses the value if you can show proof that the value of your home is significantly lower.
QUOTE]

You can do this in GA. I live in Gwinnett County and our house values were reassessed and my taxes went down $500. Unfortunately, they just approved an increase in the millage rate so we'll be getting an additional bill in January for the extra amount owed, but it will still be less then what I paid last year.

Hey, my parents live in Gwinnett! I graduated from Norcross (the old one).

 

[mjkacmom]

No need, unfortunately - I'm in NJ, so my property taxes increase every single year, and I owe (I've owned my home for 12 years, and they've more than doubled - an increase of $7000).

 

[chicagoshannon]

Our properties are assessed every 3 years or so here. Our taxes also went up. I think 2010 is assessment time again so hopefully they'll go down.

We don't have an escrow. If you put less then 20% down you are required to have an escrow account though.