My current living arrangements

I have been dating someone for several months now and at the present we spend most every night together if we are not traveling for work. Basically, I spend my time at her house for a variety of reasons and I am fine with that. I am still having to pay a mortgage and utilities at my own place though. I have raised the thermostat and unplugged the televisions to save electricity.

The plan is to eventually move in together in 8 months or so. I am going to have to sell my townhouse and I will probably take a loss on the sale. I am fine with that because once I do sell my place and start paying half of her mortgage my housing costs will decrease about $1,200 per month not including utilities. It will take my about a year to recoup a $15,000 loss at that rate.

I am keeping my fingers crossed with the housing crisis. My townhouse is in a historic neighborhood close to downtown and that should be a plus with the price of gas. I am able to take the train to downtown from where my girlfriend lives and that is a really good thing with $4.00 gas. I am thinking about canceling my monthly parking which should save me the $110 monthly parking fees less the daily cost of parking at $4.00 a day if I drive. The train cost $3.50 round-trip. I have to admit I have gottne spoiled with the in-out priveledges of the monthly parkers.

Annual mortgage escrow analysis

Once every year mortgage lenders do an escrow analysis to determine if the escrow payments have accumulated the proper amount to pay future taxes and insurance. My first escrow analysis was done at the end of December 2007 and the results showed that I had an overage of $1,592 in my account. The mortgage lender will be mailing me a refund check and, in addition, my monthly mortgage payment is going to decrease by about $85. I plan to use that extra money to build up my emergency fund with I have decided is woefully underfunded at the moment.

My mortgage lender includes an escrow cushion equal to 1/6 of my projected taxes and insurance. I used to think that some sort of state law required that but an escrow cushion is held at the discretion of the lender. Housing and Urban Deveopment (HUD) regulations limit the amount that a lender can hold in escrow. A few states require that interest be paid on escrow accounts, unfortunately my state does not.

Glad I am not trying to sell my home

I found an article in USA Today which does not bode well for those who need to sell their homes. It looks like the housing downturn will last longer than previously anticipated and the drop in home prices is here for a while. I feel bad for many of the folks who have gotten sucked up in the subprime mortgage mess but many of them new that they were getting in over thier heads when they got the mortgage. I really feel bad for the folks who are seeing their equity erode because of the increases in foreclosures in their neightborhoods. These are the real victims of this.