Question about the foreclosure crisis: how did homeowners "take out" money

[coalition_unwilling]

from their homes?

If I had a mortgage for $250,000 and the value of my home increased to $300,000, I understand that I could re-fi at $300,000, use the proceeds to pay off the original mortgage and have $50,000 left over to buy the Escalade or Hummer.

But I would then have to make mortgage payments on a $300,000 mortgage (presumably higher monthly P&I payments).

So in what sense did I take money out of the house (or use the house "as an ATM")? I'm having a little trouble understanding the metaphors being used, I suppose.

[frazzled]

1. When people took out equity loans ...

on the amount their houses had increased in value, they didn't put them back into mortgages. They used the money to pay things like tuition for their kids' college, additions and home improvements, medical bills, travel, etc. etc.

[MineralMan]

6. And even worse, some took out equity lines of credit, then

used the money to put down payments on cars, boats, and expensive toys. So, not only were they paying interest on their home equity loans but on the things they bought using their equity money to get credit for other things.

Many foolish decisions were made by folks who though there was no ceiling to the housing market.

[Skinner]

2. You pretty much have it right.

As the value of the home increased, homeowners could refinance and increase the size of their mortgage. Or they could add a home equity line of credit on top of their old mortgage.

Either way, the amount of money they were spending each month servicing their debt would increase. Because the amount of debt increased.

I read somewhere that many homeowners were using the money from their home equity line of credit in order to pay their monthly mortgage payments. This is, understandably, a recipe for disaster. When the borrowed money ran out, they couldn't make the payments -- on the mortgage or the line of credit.

[abumbyanyothername]

7. But why is that a disaster?

At that point the homeowner is forced to make a good decision and leave an overpriced asset in an overheated market.

Essentially, the borrower just screwed the bank.

[Skinner]

13. Because they weren't leaving an overpriced asset in an overheated market.

The disaster occurred because their house was no longer overpriced, and the market was no longer overheated. Home prices were decreasing, and the market was slowing down. They couldn't sell because they owed more on their mortgages than they could get by selling the house.

[abumbyanyothername]

14. Right, but if they fully levered

that is, took 100% out of their house, they don't have to sell, just walk.

The bank takes a loss, the borrower had a party.

[Skinner]

16. Somehow I doubt that most people walking away from their mortgages were "having a party."

It is true that sometimes walking away makes economic sense. But I don't think it is a choice that anyone enjoyed making. And it is not without consequences.

[Skittles]

26. it has devastated the people I know who had to do it

I heard words from them like "mortified", "ashamed" and "humiliated". :(

[Robb]

17. Except the bank gets to go after the borrower

Outside of bankruptcy, and with the exception of a few states that don't allow it, a bank can go after a homeowner for the difference between what they sell the foreclosed home for and what was owed on it. Plus fees of all kinds.

"Just walk" doesn't work in every state. In most, the bank can get a judgment against the former homeowner for the difference and have it garnished from salary, or have assets seized and sold, etc. Bankruptcy is an option, but if the person has assets they can be taken to pay off debts.

It's obviously not a great deal for the bank, but it sucks much more for the former homeowners.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

41. It is rarely worth it

It remains to be seen if the junk debt collectors will make an appearance though, the laws in most states are ambiguous.

[Robb]

42. Laws regarding what are ambiguous?

The law is quite clear regarding deficiency judgments, and when a lender can seek them, in every state.

It is always worth cost of the effort, regardless of whether it will recoup the loss being taken on the mortgage. Something is better than nothing, and when it is legal, they are pursuing them.

[coalition_unwilling]

44. I take your point, altho I do

wonder if the attempt to obtain and collect on a judgment is "always worth the effort" (your words).

I'm thinking there are probably fixed costs involved in getting the judgment and then cokecting on it. I would guess the banks use some (known) cost- (possible) benefit analysis to decide whom to pursue.

On edit: thank you for introducing the distinction between recourse and non-recourse yesterday. I had no idea the distinction existed.

[Robb]

45. No no, you're absolutely right

There will be banks that do the analysis on a case-by-case and decide not to spend money trying to get blood from a stone, so to speak. :hi:

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

46. if a junk debt buyer can have "first party" rights to a deficiency judgment

It often simply isn't worth the cost or effort of collecting on a deficiency judgment against somebody who has been annihilated financially. What remains to be seen is if financial institutions will start selling deficiency judgments to the junk debt collection industry.

Without "first party rights" which gives a junk debt collector the same rights as the original creditor it is often pointless even for them.

[FarCenter]

36. You are right about CA, NV, AZ and FL, the state with the highest foreclosure rates

In those states, in many cases, the homeowner can just walk away from the property and the lender can't go after their other assets.

In the majority of states, the lender can go after the borrowers other assets and force the borrower into personal bankruptcy.

[sendero]

49. Most states..

... are "non-recourse" for mortgages, meaning the lender gets the collateral back (the house) and that's the end of it, except for a bad credit history.

The banks know, or should know, that there is going to be a lot of jingle-mail in the coming years.

As as for "moral obligation", if I were a homeowner in an underwater house, if it were a moral dilemma to me I'd ask "what would the banker do if he were in my position?", and go from there.

[Xithras]

54. It's not true that CA protects against pursuit after foreclosure.

I should know, since BofA is in the process of taking away one of my rental homes right now and I recently went over all of this with my lawyer.

Only the original purchase loan is protected. If you refi that loan, you lose the protection. If you pull a HELOC, it's not protected. If you try to get your rate lowered, it's not protected. If you refi under the current federal programs to lower your interest rate and keep you in your home, you ALSO lose your non-recourse protections in California.

You are only protected on the original loans used to purchase the property, and only if those loans remain unmodified in any way. This fact is biting a LOT of people right now who mistakenly bought into the generalization that "Banks can't pursue you after foreclosure in California." In the majority of foreclosure cases being processed today, they CAN pursue.

Whether or not they choose to do so remains to be seen.

[Tansy_Gold]

15. Besides destroying their credit, the borrowers who walk away

Lose whatever equity -- if they have any -- in the property.

One of the explanations for the bursting of the bubble was that so many houses were sold with no downpayment, which meant the buyers really had no equity to begin with, no investment to protect. As they continued to refi and pull equity out rather than build it, they had no incentive to stay in the house and pay the mortgage.

Home ownership that was taken for granted a generation or two ago is now almost a thing of the past. When my husband and I fell on difficult times, the one thing that kept us focused was the desire to pay off the mortgage and eventually own the house free and clear. A mortgage payment can eventually disappear; rent goes on forever. After his death, the one thing that kept me from seriously difficult times was the fact that we were near enough to the end of the mortgage that I could pay it off from insurance proceeds. Eventually I sold that house and bought another, without a mortgage.

Whether my children will ever be able to do that is questionable, because they had to buy into a market where the houses will probably not increase in value at the rate that mine did.


TG

[coalition_unwilling]

24. And I have trouble getting my

mind around that use of the proceeds of the re-fi to make the monthly P&I payments on the now-higher note.

Using my hypothetical example, let's further assume that the borrower's monthly income barely qualified him or her for the original $250,000 note.

How could any responsible banker issue a mortgage for $300,000 when the borrower's income and cash flow could not support the now-higher monthly payments on the $300,000 note?

Maybe I don't think larcenously enough or like a capitalist, but something seems out of whack with the logic both lenders and borrowers followed. I'll be damned if I can put it into words though. It's like going through the looking glass.

[Skinner]

25. Listen to this:

"The Giant Pool of Money" (This American Life)

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=355

It's the best explanation of the housing crunch I've ever heard. Amazingly, it was originally broadcast in May 2008, before the big meltdown and bank bailout. You can listen free online.

[coalition_unwilling]

53. Thanks for this - n/t

[SoCalDem]

38. Easy.. bankers & mortgage companies went NUTZ!!!

they took their fees off the top, and passed the hot potato to the next guy..

we put off doing a refi for the longest time, because every home mortgage deal we had had, involved all kinds of paperwork..then a friend told me about hers so I called the people she used, and THEY DID IT OVER THE PHONE... faxed papers to my husband's office, and then had someone meet us at Denny's to sign the official papers :rofl: if we had only known it was that easy we would have done it sooner:)

[coalition_unwilling]

40. Without prying unduly, why did you

re-finance?

Just b\c bankers and mortgage companies went nutz would not compel you to do the same.

More to the point, do you have any regrets over having re-fi'ed? Did doing so cause you any financial hardship afterwards?

[SoCalDem]

48. When we bought in 1981 our interest rate was 8.2%

and we finally re-fied to get a rate of 5.25%..all those years of paying the higher interest rate were due to sheer laziness and fear of having to put together all that nasty paperwork.. It was just easier to pay the higher rate and not have to mess with it all again.. but when my friend said how easy it was for her, I thought.."why not"?

The whole housebuying precess for us in the past was a flurry of calls saying.. "Now we need you bring us <fill in some obscure bit of paperwork here>, and it took weeks.

The only irritating thing was that the re-fi people were annoyingly pushy in trying to get us to TAKE MORE $ in the re-fi.. we wanted exactly what we needed for painting, some concrete work, a new AC unit and a new roof.... They called us twice to tell us.. "You have $225K equity, you could take a LOT more out, without impacting your payment all that much.." and I kept saying No thanks.. All we wanted was $12K & change for the improvements..the were not happy with us, but that's what we did.

We insisted on a 30Yr Fixed, and that's what we settled with..

Our financial situation was not a factor before or after...just thought the lower rates era was about to end, so why not lower our rate a bit.. we pay less actually than before:)

[coalition_unwilling]

50. It sounds like you re-fi'ed for all the right reasons (to secure

a significantly lower interest rate and to use the excess proceeds from the re-fi for improvements to your home) and not to finance conspicuous consumption and 'keeping up with the Jones-es'.

Kudos to you for resisting the inducements of the lender to "raid the piggy bank" that is your home.

My wife and I recently bought our first home (a 2BR, 2 BA condo) and secured a 30-year FHA fixed-rate loan for it. So I am all too familiar with the paper chase you allude to. In fact, we found the entire mortgage application process deeply distasteful (including, in my case, a last-minute demand from the lender that I produce a 19-year-old divorce decree to 'prove' that I did not have to pay alimony!).

My wife and I also were giggling madly at the image of you signing the re-fi documents at Denny's :) Maybe next time (assuming there is one) you can insist that the signing take place at your local 7-11 :rofl:

[abumbyanyothername]

3. You took money out of the home in the sense that

you got cash money today, in exchange for a promise to pay (a little principal and a lot of interest) over time.

The whole plan would have worked out great except for the fact that people get attached to their homes. Otherwise we could have stuck the banks with what they deserved.

[Skinner]

11. I think the problem was not that people got attached to their homes.

The problem is that home values stopped increasing, and started decreasing. The homeowner who buys a home for $300,000 (and has a mortgage for $240,000) can get out of trouble if the value of the house keeps going up -- just sell it. But if the value of the house falls below the value of the mortgage, then you *can't* sell it. If you owe $240,000 on your mortgage and you sell the house for $200,000, then you still owe $40,000! If you can't come up with that additional $40,000, then you can't sell your house.

Add to that the fact that many mortgages were short-term adjustable rate mortgages. Homeowners thought they could always re-finance or sell before the rate re-set. But they were "underwater" on the mortgage so they couldn't sell the house and no bank would re-finance. So the rate re-sets, and suddenly they are supposed to pay a mortgage payment that is double what it used to be!

[Robb]

18. Indeed

...A house is only worth what you can actually sell it for. And when no one's buying because everyone's convinced it's not at rock bottom yet, and as you say, the adjustable rate resets in the meantime, people get hosed.

[DesertFlower]

4. we had a conversation yesterday

with someone whose home went into forclosure. when he bought it he put about $100,000 down. the house cost close to $300.000. the value went up and the restaurant he owned ran into trouble, so he took equity out of the house. then 2 years ago he opened another restaurant. again, he took money out of the house. his mortgage payment went up to $4,000 a month. he and his wife are now living in a rental house.

[abumbyanyothername]

8. Do they still have the restaurants?

Good deal then.

[DesertFlower]

10. no. the first one went out of

business and the 2nd one he walked away from. his sister in law was a co-owner and they couldn't get along. now he's working for his sister in her restaurant. she really doesn't need him, but orientals take care of family members.

[tularetom]

5. If you walked away from your mortgage you would still own the car free and clear

So in essence you would have a hummer or escalade that you didn't pay for and the bank would own a $250,000 home that they had loaned you $300,000 on.

And they can't come after your car.

Your credit is damaged.

But the bank is fucked. As are their shareholders.

[Robb]

19. Depends on the state

In "recourse" states, like Colorado, you better believe they can come get your car if they go to a judge for the deficiency.

[Tansy_Gold]

20. and you pretty much better plan on living in that car

If you walk away from a mortgage, your credit will be screwed. That can affect your car insurance rate. If the vehicle is a Hummer or Escalade, your premium is probably already substantial.

If you walk away from a mortgage, the bank will come after you. If you have credit cards, they will be essentially cancelled, the interest rate on existing balances jacked sky high. You can be held liable for the mortgage even after you walk away from it. I mean, it's not like you just tell the bank you're not going to pay any more and they can have the house back. They can garnish wages -- if you still have a job. They can garnish the wages of your spouse -- if she/he still has a job. (They cannot -- yet -- garnish social security benefits). They can put liens on other assets you own, including bank accounts, insurance settlements, other property.

If you walk away from a mortgage, you may not be able to rent. Landlords, especially of apartment complexes, routinely make credit checks. Someone who defaults on a mortgage is not considered a good candidate for renting. Individuals who rent property are also becoming more and more selective of who they rent to, and are able to check credit reports.

If you walk away from a mortgage, have no job and no credit, you're probably not going to be able to afford the taxes and licenses on that Hummer or Escalade, so you won't be able to drive it. And since you won't be able to rent from any reputable landlord, you might as well live in the car.


Tansy Gold

[tularetom]

32. Um, I'm not advocating that anyone actually DO this

Just stating a fact.

Indeed the banks CAN do all these things, but here in the foreclosure capital of America they don't have the manpower to actually do them because of the sheer volume of foreclosures. The banks don;t even spend the money to protect their investments, letting the houses they foreclose on go to hell to the point where they won't recover at auction even the carrying cost of the money they have lost.

My retirement gig has been buying remodeling and selling older homes. The buying and remodeling part has been going well as of late (home prices are depressed and subcontractors are hungry) but I'm competing with a shitload of bank foreclosures and short sales on the selling end. Right now I have 3 I'm trying to sell. I'm fortunate in that I owe nothing on any of them, but the taxes and maintenance are eating into any profits I might make when and if they sell and my working capital for that matter.

[Tansy_Gold]

35. Oh, I understand, and I didn't mean a personal "you" but a rhetorical one

And of course, I'm always writing to the lurkers as well as the replied-to poster.

I live another of the foreclosure hot spots, so I know exactly what you mean. Houses that sold for $300K three years ago are now begging for buyers at $150K and less. A friend who took advantage of a foreclosure six months ago to buy one of those, hoping to sell his place for the same is now stuck with both of them.

But the scenario posed was to walk away from the house, whereas the more prudent thing to do might be simply to stay in the house, either not pay or make whatever payments possible (to show good faith), and then wait to see what happens.



TG

[Tansy_Gold]

9. Your understanding is correct

But doesn't go far enough.

The rationale, if you want to call it that, behind these refi's was that if the payments became more than the borrower could afford, they could always sell the house, presumably for $350,000 or $400,000, pay off the existing mortgage, and use the remaining money as down payment on another house. It was ALL and ALWAYS predicated on the notion that the house would continue to rise in value, never drop.

But like all bubbles, aka Ponzi schemes, the real estate market depended on new suckers coming into the market all the time. In other words, more buyers than there were houses to buy. That kept the price constantly rising. When they ran out of qualified buyers under the old definitions of qualified, they changed the definitions. So people were brought into the market who didn't have the money to keep the system afloat. The prices continued to go up, but. . . .

One a few of those unqualified borrowers began to default, the whole system started to collapse. Now there were more houses than buyers, and sellers were lowering their prices to move the properties. The house that a month ago was refinanced for $300,000 suddenly became worth $250,000, because other houses just like it were selling for $250,000. And when those comparable homes were selling for $200,000, then that $300,000 mortgage became unwieldy.

The ATM metaphor, obviously, leaves out that the refi's were loans that had to be paid back, not withdrawals from an existing deposit. The fallacy was that home prices would always go up and the loans would never really have to be repaid.


TG

[coalition_unwilling]

30. A great and very eloquent response (as

are many of the responses to my OP).

My question then morphs into this: who was responsible for making sure that borrowers were qualified and could make the monthly payments? And who changed the definition of what it meant to be qualified?

[northernlights]

12. HELOC -- home equity line of credit

You bought the $300,000 with minimum down and great interest. Housing market heats up, and suddenly your $300,000 is worth $400,000. So you get a HELOC for $50K and buy the car. It's a separate loan from the mortgage, but much lower interest than a car loan. And as described by someone else, now you own the car outright.

Housing market plunges, home is now worth $250,000. You lose job, or your business runs into trouble, and now you can't keep up with the payments on both loans. Or you can...but the HELOC bank fears you can't. Or is themselves in a cashflow problem and wants their money back.

I just got the application for a HELOC in case of emergency -- looked at the terms and said, thanks but no thanks. In case of emergency, I'll dump my home (I own it outright) and start fresh.

Because the fine print said the bank can demand full repayment of the HELOC at any time if they change their minds and *think* you may not be able to make the payments. And if you don't pay it *in full on demand* they can auction your house off out from under you. Not for a late payment. Not for a missing payment. Because they decided you really can't afford it after all, and demanded full payment.

[uncle ray]

52. another problem: many people didn't just go out and buy a car outright.

if they got a 50k heloc, they might use 20k as a down payment to buy a new F350, and finance the rest. then 5k down on a 25k boat to pull behind the F350. then they decide some dirt bikes would be fun too, more down payments on more debt. probably the only thing they bought free and clear with their heloc money is their flat screen tv. throw in the stuff like a nice Caribbean cruise that you can't exactly sell after you use it and you have a "homeowner" with a ton of stuff they don't even own.

[Warpy]

21. When people refinanced their houses and spent the profit

they were using those houses as an ATM, spending paper profit that really didn't exist unless they'd sold the place outright. When the house lost value, they were stuck with the original debt plus the debt on the money they'd spent.

Others were a hair smarter, using the profit to pay off high credit card debt, effectively converting two loans into one, both at a lower interest rate. However, they too owed the original debt plus the debt they'd "paid off." It was just taking the debt away from one lender and transferring it to another.

Unfortunately, both are now under water on that higher mortgage, even though the second party is still ahead of the game when you figure out the lower interest rate on his original consumer debt and what he'd have had to pay out over the 35 year life of that loan.

The problem with thinking some prices will inflate forever and that some investments are failure proof is that they won't and they're not.

People who ran up debt they can't pay have beautiful memories, though, or they should.

[earth mom]

22. You're spending the future profits from your home. nt

[rzemanfl]

23. The Bush Administration, to keep the economy going, especially

after the shock of 9/11, artifically pumped the housing market by making mortgages too cheap and too unregulated, leading to inflation in house prices, creating "equity" that people borrowed against to buy things. There is a graph somewhere that demonstates this, I will try to find it.

Here:

http://financialreckoningday.blogspot.com/2009/04/gdp-growth-with-and-without-mortgage.html

[Liberal_in_LA]

27. Equity loan. Some buyers got 105% loans, loans for more than value of home.

[SoCalDem]

28. The new mortgage has higher payments & often the "costs" were just added to the end

so you have $50K in hand that you did not have before..you blow it and then a a year re fi all over again with the NEW "value..

If you put NOTHING down on that $250K house, and a year later have $50K, and then you walk away, your credit's ruined, but you "got" a $50k bonus for renting that house for a year

For quite a few years, people re-fied over and over and over, and it was not uncommon at all. My own best friend bought a house with $29K down (99K selling price)..so in month #1 she owed $70K, and then she met Charley..

By last October, they owed $330K on a house that is now "worth" $129K... all that money from 70K to 330K was money they took out over the re-fi years..

[notesdev]

29. Let me clear up some confusion here...

Let's take a house, say it was bought in 2000 for $100,000 with a $20,000 down payment, leaving a mortgage of $80,000.

Fast forward to 2005, this same house (or comparable properties) is appraised at $300,000. In the meantime, the borrower has paid down some of their principal through mortgage payments, so let's say there's $70,000 left on the mortgage. (Mortgages are front-loaded with interest payment so that the principal is mostly paid down with the final payments - five years in, not much of the principal will be paid down.)

The borrower can then do something called a "cash-out refi(nance)" of the home; if there is, say, a 20% equity requirement and $70,000 outstanding on the mortgage, that leave $140,000 that can be borrowed against the house.

Another method is to use a HELOC (Home Equity Line of Credit) which could be done above and beyond the mortgage. That 20% equity the first lender required can then be borrowed against for the HELOC; this gives another $60,000 that the borrower can put in his pocket, leaving NO net equity in the house.

And so people did. And spent and spent and spent. If you're wondering how everyone suddenly started driving Mercedes and SUVs and all sorts of other expensive vehicles, and were able to pay for all the useless luxuries of the uber-consumer society, that's how they did it.

However...

Fast forward to 2009. All the cash-out refi and HELOC money was spent; but the house is now worth only $140,000... and dropping. But the borrower is still on the hook for $290,000 in debt (assuming another $10k got paid down from 2005-2009).

That borrower has EVERY reason to walk away at this point, sticking the bank with a $150,000 or more loss.

[coalition_unwilling]

34. Your "However . . . " is deadly. My wife

said just now in response to my telling her about the thrust of this thread that some people took very little notice that they were "crossing the fine line between the American Dream and Keeping Up With the Jones-es."

[Robb]

37. As I said upthread, only in some states.

States like California and Arizona are non-recourse states, e.g. the bank can be left holding the bag in the situation you're describing.

However, not all states are this way. In many, the bank can go to court and get a judgment against the former homeowner for the difference. Only bankruptcy has a hope of clearing the debt after a judgment in most cases, and there are consequences if the borrower has any assets (savings, cars, etc.)

This is IMO a big reason CA and AZ are leading the nation in walk-aways.

[notesdev]

39. On recourse

Recourse matters a lot - that's why all these modification programs failed, they required the borrowers to give up the non-recourse status.

However, there's a point where even all that other stuff doesn't matter, when the level of debt is so crushing and the hole so large that there is no possibility to fill it. When we're talking about something the size of a bubble era mortgage, the potential for millions to walk even in the face of recourse is serious.

If debts and job losses keep mounting we will get to that point, and that may not even be all that far down the road. Just take a look at how far things have progressed in only a year.

[Mr Generic Other]

31. i don't think what you spent the money you got when you refinanced your home matters

when the industry says you "took money" out of your house. when used in relationship to a foreclosure, money you "took out" of your home is that money, you all identify, that you borrowed on the perceived increased value of your home. the only way that money would not be considered "taken out" of the home is if you put it back into the home by increasing the actual value (not just a perceived market value) of the home, through improvements.
why the term exists, in the context of foreclosure, is the bank's concern that you are now unable to pay the $300,000 as opposed to the $250,000. in a sense the $50,000 was an unsecured loan, in this instance, as the real value of the home did not increase.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[LaydeeBug]

43. factor in predatory lending and you're about right, my friend. nt

[NNN0LHI]

47. I refinanced my home 5 years ago after paying it off once

Not for vacations or other things though. I put every penny I took out of the house and put it right back into the house. Just about got the place like I want it now. I am not underwater.

Need a new furnace and air conditioner and then I should be done.

Don

[coalition_unwilling]

51. You are definitely not one who "took money out of your house" or

"used it as an ATM."

It does seem like a lot of the re-finance activity in America, though, went to finance conspicuous consumption and "keeping up with the Jones-es".

I have been thinking about it a lot these past few days and what I've finally decided it came down to for those folks who used their houses as 'ATMs' is that they were borrowing against unrealized capital gains on their asset. The problem is that the capital gain only became 'realized' upon the sale of the asset, a fact many people seem to have forgotten during the heady years of the housing boom.

[quiller4]

55. Some homeowners repeatedly refinanced. Yes, they had

a bigger mortgage balance each time they did but that didn't always result in an increased monthly payment. With home values increasing at the rate they were and loan interest rates dropping, some saw almost no change in payments after refinancing--especially if they moved from an ARM to a 30 year fixed rate. We refinanced in 2001 from an ARP to a 30 year fixed, got the cash to put on a new roof and saw our monthly payment drop from $1275 to $950 because our loan was less that 60% of the new appraised value and the interest rate was lower. We had been paying PMI on the old note since 1993 but because of the increased home value, we were able to drop PMI. We sold the property in Dec 2002.

[coalition_unwilling]

56. Again, you sound like someone who re-fi'ed for all the 'right reasons' and

not to engage in conspicuous consumption or 'Keeping up with the Jones'es'. You used the cash for a 'new roof' and not for an Escalade or Hummer.