We have an email waiting for us from our lender. I’ve never been really happy with the way he wrote the original mortgage. Currently we have an interest only loan for 1 year with a balloon payment at the end of the year. Yes, he was right about the rates coming down in the not too distant future, but honestly, why not write the mortgage the normal way and then it’s up to us if we want to refinance when the rates come down. So here we are, 6 months into our mortgage and right in the middle of refinance!

The mortgage market has taken a hit the past year, which although it works in our favor as far as rates go, it’s really sad. So far in our neighborhood alone 4 of my kids friends have had to up and move because they were losing their homes. How sad! It’s certainly not the mortgage industry alone to blame, I think there are a lot of factors that go into it, but the most important thing is to become as educated as you can about the different types of loans as well as sitting down and really looking at what you can afford. We knew the maximum amount of a possible mortgage before we ever stepped into a home to look at it. When you fall in love with a home it’s really easy to think of all of the possible cuts you can make to your spending habits. Yet when it actually comes down to it, that is really hard to do.

The Chef’s restaurant company just purchased a spot for a third restaurant. It’s taking the place of another restaurant that went under, I guess Commercial Mortgages are having the same kind of problems with their mortgagees as the residential market. So it looks like the Chef will be moving from the Elk Grove property to the Naperville property to oversee the opening of that restaurant!