Category Archives: Dearborn

Dearborn is where I live in Michigan, just west of Detroit.

The poor economy helps me with my Mortgage!

When I purchased my home I thought I’d stay in it around four or five years, give or take a year, next month will make eleven years! I’d never owned a home before, but interest rates were good, I had a condo that I liked and when the rent on my Southgate apartment jumped way up, it sealed this was the deal for me.

Mortgages For Dummies, 3rd Edition Eric Tyson, Ray Brown The rates on the 5-year Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARM) seemed pretty decent; I knew rates were down but I like to cover my bets, and any year after five years the mortgage could go up 2% a year. Silly me, I was worried that if the economy got better I’d have a higher mortgage rate; but I never thought I’d live here more than seven years (when it would have the opportunity to have jumped up 2% two times).

Well it’s that time of year again and my mortgage adjusted, it went down 1/8th of a percent. I’m now paying 3.125%, this is much less than my original 6.875%. While I understand the value of my home has probably dropped, at least I’m not paying a higher mortgage at the same time, the lower value means less property taxes.

Year Rate
1998 6.875%
1999 6.875%
2000 6.875%
2001 5.25% (paid $750 to lower rate*)
2002 4.25% (paid $750 to lower rate*)
2003 4.25%
2004 4.25%
2005 4.25%
2006 4.25%
2007 4.25%
2008 4.875% (first yearly adjust)
2009 3.25% (yearly adjust)
2010 3.125% (yearly adjust)

I was paying the higher rate in the beginning when I owed a lot more money, so the higher interest rate did affect me more, but at the time it was a low interest rate. I think the rates were around 7% at the time and I paid a few hundred dollars ($300-ish) to lower it 3/8ths of a percent, which was supposed to take three-and-a-half years to make that few hundred dollar fee back, but since I paid the $750 to lower the rate I lost out on that (I think it was three years to the day) but only the $30-$50 I hadn’t recovered; I still think that was a good decision, who could have predicted a crisis of 9/11 proportions would occur?

I’m living on the East side of Dearborn (Michigan, United States) and they’ve finally removed the old deserted Montgomery Wards building and finishing a new office building which might help (a tiny bit) in revitalizing this side of town…

I made pretty good money decisions on this for my first time. The one big mistake I made was at the time of purchase I did have the ability to put 20% down (I had put down 15%) and I wish I had done the 20%; yes I know that’s a lot to put down these days, but my mother always taught me to be a good saver and I knew I’d want to buy someday. Here’s why: The PMI insurance, this is the insurance that you pay for to guarantee that you won’t default (but only for the first 20%), was harder to drop than they made me believe: you had to pay for an inspection and if the value of the house had dropped it wouldn’t be 20% and it wouldn’t get waived so I was a little nervous and a little annoyed. But it was $35 a month that I was putting towards nothing (for me, at least) that could have been towards my house and I didn’t like seeing it on my statement. It was about $35 for every 5%, so if I’d put down 0%, it’d have been $140 a month (that’s $1440 each year!). But if something had happened at the time and I needed the money, that would have been gone from my reserves (but I’m still kicking myself for it).

So other than my PMI rant, the whole home owning process has gone really really well. I’m still happy with the home. It’s been very centrally located to the three different jobs (Allen Park, Redford, Hamtramck) I’ve had since I lived here.

*Surprisingly, when I paid the $750 for the ARM to adjust adjust the rate, it actually restarted the 5-years over! So when I ended up changing to the 4.25% rate, it held for the next 5 years.

Black Friday 2009 line at Best Buy

Wow! They’re already lined up at Best Buy in Dearborn. They store doesn’t open until 5 AM!!!

Here’s a link to the HQ video.

That’s insane, I can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like later on…

Dearborn had fireworks tonight!

The City of Dearborn was supposed to have fireworks earlier this summer but it got rained out (I think that’s why it was delayed) and tonight was the make up day.

Wow! It was amazing, it was a constant barrage of fireworks for about 25 minutes. Very cool.

fireworks-tall-red-IMG_0546.JPG

I love how red this image came out!


This is a few short clips combined.
Even though the preview is small the video isn’t


This clip is short, but the video came out more focused than the other.

It was an impressive show. I won’t miss another one at Dearborn’s Ford Field if I have a choice about it.

Random Friday Thoughts

Why doesn’t anyone have a bike rack to park your bike at any more? It’s a pain in the ass when I need to park it somewhere. I’m being healthy and ecological and have to climb in the bushes to find a place to lock it up. The only thing around with one is the library. Although I guess since I’m writing this from McDonald’s, healthy isn’t the first thought in my head…

glee-tv.pngI’ve got these stupid songs from Glee (that link goes to a free HD download of the pilot), running through my head. The two songs in particular are You’re the one that I want from Grease and Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey. Kind of a cute show, most of the adult characters are pretty lame though (the women especially). I just noticed they’ve got the cast doing Don’t Stop Believin’ at iTunes.

I think I need to go see Night at the Museum II and/or Terminator Salvation some time this weekend.

It’s another awesomely sunny day out too!

It’s Awful Driving on the Roads…

weatherdec232008.2008The roads are awful right now. I’m working my way down to my neck/back doctor’s office and finishing up Christmas shopping as I pass by places. The speed of the traffic determines how many of those errands that I’ll get done. Unfortunately, it probably won’t be anywhere near enough time…

And the weather doesn’t make it look like it’s going to get any better any time soon. That’s Michigan in the center if you can’t tell…

Yucky!

I hadn’t been feeling great these past few days and yesterday it got a little worse, I did go in to work but since I’m worse today I’m thinking that wasn’t the best idea. Actually the last seven days have been pretty busy, so not a shocker that it caught up with me. Today I went in for a long morning meeting that I needed/wanted to be there for, but then I headed home.

I stopped at Bangkok 96 in Dearborn for some great fried rice with chicken, peanuts, shrimp and more in it. It’s delicious but a little spicier than I remembered. That might not have been the best idea…

A nap will really be nice but unfortunately, I had a lot of fun stuff I wanted to do tonight after work,,,

I’m looking for Detroit Local Tweeters (Twitters)

Can you suggest some Detroit-area people to follow on Twitter? I’m looking for something that has a local geographic flavor, like Dearborn (or Detroit) Michigan.

I’m always looking for more people to follow, but today I’m soliciting suggestions for the Detroit area just to get a slightly less global feel for this Twittery goodness/chaos. I’ve got a lot of great people that I follow, but I’d love to see some tweets about local restaurants, bars and music.

So send me a message @GaryLaPointe with suggestions or tell someone you know to follow me and I’ll find them or just leave a comment. Thanks!

A Fine Frenzy is in Detroit this weekend

One Cell in the Sea A Fine FrenzyA Fine Frenzy is playing in Detroit at the Shelter this weekend. It’s a really small venue so it should be a great show! I saw A Fine Frenzy in the fall (upstairs at St. Andrews)and it was an incredible show (they/she opened for Brandi Carlile). Ferras is opening for them, but I have no idea who that is, maybe someone American Idol-ish?

If anyone is going please leave me a comment or send an e-mail and we can say “hi” while were there…. My mission for the evening is Happy Hour for dinner in Dearborn, a fund raiser auction for school in Redford (this is while we’re missing Ferras) and then get over to the theatre to see Alison sing and sign autgraphs…

Speaking of the auction, once again as an auction prize you can buy bags of coffee, straight from costa rica with some chocolate covered coffee beans. Brought to you from central Amaerica by Moi! Also you can by a basket of Cat in the Hat stickers and books which includes a visit to your house from the Cat in the Hat himself!