"We had whittled the amount down by $35,000 by rounding the monthly payment up against the principal, which continues," said Hander, who is retired after a 40-year college-teaching career.
His wife works part time in the medical-billing department at Abington Memorial Hospital. They have credit scores of 669 and 749.
Their monthly payment started at $2,300, but escrow adjustments have raised it to $2,500.
The interest rate is and has been 6.125 percent, which was low in early 2003. Their custom house would list in the "very high $500,000s or even more," Hander said.
Looking at their interest rate, and the 4.5 percent available now, the Handers talked about refinancing "but never did anything about it."
That is, until they began getting "relentless calls" from someone who identified herself only by her first name and said she was from Plymouth Meeting.
The woman "would only speak to my wife, who was never available," Hander said. Finally, about six weeks later, the connection was made, and "my wife listened to her spiel."
The woman was a loan officer from a lender - I know which one, but all of them have been doing this, so insert your favorite one here.
Hander already had been informed by one of the credit-reporting services that the lender was on the prowl.
A second phone call from the woman informed his wife that a refinance would be an FHA-insured mortgage, even though the couple's current mortgage wasn't.
His wife told the loan officer that "[you] could have saved yourself a lot of time if you'd have said that first," Hander said. "Nevertheless, she listened to the details and reported the same to me."
The new mortgage was to have a fixed interest rate of 5 percent, but with a mortgage-insurance payment on top of the one charged by the FHA.
