But I need someone to tell me that I'm stupid for thinking this.

I am in the process of refinancing my house. I asked for a settlement statement early, and got it emailed to me in PDF form.

When I examined the settlement statement, I found quite a bit of money they were going to take from me, primarily for paying back interest on my "old" loan.

At the end of the day, I went from owing them $141 to them owing me $1100.

All I really did was put my settlement statement into an Excel spreadsheet, and then look at each part of the statement, mainly the interest I was paying, and the escrow.

I did add up the fees to get a total, then compared my monthly savings from the new loan against the old loan to see how quickly I was paying the extra cost off.

I found that they pulled my payoff on my old loan BEFORE my June payment had been posted, so they wanted to charge me almost $700 more than they needed to. They rechecked my loan and I saved $700.

Then I attacked the escrow. I had just paid my hazard insurance in May, and they were asking for 5 months at $95 a month. Our hazard insurance rate is $72 a month. So, in the end, I negotiated and they charged me just 2 months at $72 a month.

Those two changes saved me close to $900 alone.

They had a late fee on my 2nd mortgage of $35, when the payment isn't late until the 8th of next month. Another $35.

Then, they had $1800 on my statement for my "old" escrow account and our latest statement showed $2200. Another $400.

At the end of the day, they owed me $1100. I found $1240 in savings. Now, I may have gotten some of that money back in 2-3 months (the extra interest), and I might have gotten the escrow back in a year or so, when they recalculated my escrow. But, then they would have "borrowed" $1240 of my money from me at no interest (with them earning interest) for up to a year.

I think I could write a program to perform these kinds of analysis on refinances in JavaScript, if people would be willing to input the data from their settlement sheet.

I'll just use the formulas from my spreadsheet, and the techniques I used to "negotiate" with them.

Once I've gathered about 1000 refi's, I could also statistically model if the fees are average, high or low. My mother did mention that I would probably need to categorize people by credit risk, or the averages might not mean much.

If I had the old and new P&I and rate, I could even calculate the number of months you would need to pay on the loan to pay for the fees.

I think I could save some people several hundred dollars per settlement statement, possibly allow people to compare good faith estimates, and do some other things.

Initially, I was thinking about asking for a donation of $20 if the program saves you $200 or more. The guy who wrote PC-File in the 1980's made himself a millionaire off of the same model.

Now, what I need from you:

1. Is someone already doing this somewhere? Am I too late to the party?

2. If I get a prototype up and going, would some of you who refinanced recently (or are about to) be willing to type in your settlement or good faith estimate to see if the calculator works? You don't have to send me $20, just give me some feedback.

3. Would keeping $500-$600 in your pocket make you interested in something like this? Or do most people just shuffle their refi paperwork, and "get it overwith".

I think I could get a PHP/JavaScript calculator up in a couple of weeks, and then I could see maybe trying to get Motley Fool or Crown Ministries (Larry Burkett) interested in something like this. Any other ideas for people who might be willing to "advertise" such a thing? I would be happy to share part of the $20 with them, as long as it's not spam.

Or is the refi boom just weeks from being over and I'm too late to the party?
My mother (a real estate agent) seems to think that the refi boom is about to be over, and that by the time I have it working, it will be too late.

Feedback? If you don't want to post here, email me at gdaustin at attbi dot com.

Glen Austin

Are supposed to:

1. Sell a title insurance policy that promises to pay damages if the house is sold with unpaid debts or if the ownership of the property ever falls into questoin (like if Indians show up with a 150 year old contract that they claim was null and void, and think they can prove it). Like box says, less than 1% chance, but very valuable if it ever happens to you. It turns out that you, the seller, sign a document guaranteeing to pay any "unknown" liens against the property, if the lien was claimed to be during the period you owned the home. So, unless it's one of those 100 year old things, or the seller disappears off the map, I don't think title insurance buys you much, for the $1000 it costs.

2. Of course, if you sell a title policy like this, then you want to research the property to at least get all the claims against the property for the current century (and maybe the 1900s, too). For this, you charge a fee.

3. Finally, Title Company is supposed to be the "unbiased" settlement house for all parties involved in the transactions. They pay the old lender, get funds from the new lender, pay the real estate agents, etc. This is the role of the Title Company I'm most upset about. In the last two real estate transactions I have done ( buying a new home, refinancing a home ), the LENDER has basically decided the Title Company choice. In both transactions, it is clear that the Title Company didn't give a damn about us, and clearly was biased toward the interests of the lender. In the last re-fi attempt in April, the Title Company never DEMANDED that the lender fund the loan, even though the loan had closed weeks before. Finally, after about 4 weeks of hand wringing, the lender declared the loan "dead", and offered us a new loan, at a lower rate, with some funds refunded. We took it. But, the Title Company clearly subrogated their responsibility as the "clearing house" for the loan, to the interests of the lender.

You close at the Title Company, the title company is supposed to be an "unbiased agent", providing the title policy and disbursing funds to the correct parties.

What really happens is that the Title Companies and banks are really "tight", and the bank or builder's bank usually choses the Title Company.

My title policy for re-fi on $134K was $1134. I was supposed to get a 20% discount from that because the original was 5 years old, but the lender told me that if the title company reduced the policy by 20%, then they would add that cost back into my re-fi fees. Jerks.

I hate lenders. That's why my new pledge is to attempt to be debt free (except mortgage) by 2004, and maybe completely debt free including mortgage by maybe 2010 or 2011?

Glen Austin