My Adjustable Rate Mortgage Adjusted

So it’s that time for my five year ARM (Adjustable Rate Mortgage) to start adjusting. Was a little nervous because I didn’t know how it would go. It could have go up 2% but it only jumped from 4.25% to 4.875% so I’m pretty happy about 5/8ths of a percent (it’ll stay that rate for the next year). What I couldn’t understand was why my payments dropped if the rates went up? Turns out they recalculated my mortgage based on what I currently owe and since I’ve been paying extra on my mortgage it went down; so even though my interest is going up $45-ish a month it actually dropped my monthly payment.

I’ve had a really great experience with my first mortgage. I set it up with a local company and it was immediately sold to HSBC (it was sold so fast; I signed Friday at 4 pm and Monday I got HSBC paperwork dated from Friday). I purchased the five year ARM at 6.875 interest (I think I paid a small amount for points to drop it 3/8 of a percent) then a few years later I had them redo my interest rate to 5.25% with just a phone call (and a $750 processing fee on my MasterCard) and then I did it once more (5 years ago) to 4.25% for another $750 phone call. The phone call required no paperwork, just them checking my credit and my payment history. So I managed to stretch this 5 year ARM out to almost 9 years while dropping my interest rate in the mean time.

It’s worked out quite well for me (other than the fact that housing values have dropped) especially since I never thought I’d live here even 5 years :)