re: How bad was your escrow account short this year?

Recommend checking your HO insurance. Mine doubled over the last 2 years with no claims. I shopped it myself and found new coverage for half of what they quoted me this year (so back down to what I was paying 2 years ago). I saved over $3k in about 10 minutes of work.

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I get what your saying .What does it matter if my property value goes up if i dont plan on selling ? That 2.25 loan pretty much locked that in. City basically has a blank check just to say hey your house went up this year you owe us another few thousand. Hey we need a raise looks like your house value went up again. It's BS especially with all the New houses built in this area in the last few years with them now paying taxes as well.

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We've decided that we're staying where we are for the foreseeable future, but we had talked about downsizing once all of the kids are gone, but it would mean an increase in costs for us.

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It's your job (or a lawyer you hire) to dispute your valuation, every, single, F'ing year.

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yup. i did this with all my rental properties.

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I choose not to escrow. I pay my property taxes and insurance annually.

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That is my recommendation to anyone where it is not required by your mortgage company. Keep that money invested, instead of loaning it to a 3rd party.

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I choose not to escrow. I pay my property taxes and insurance annually.


That is my recommendation to anyone where it is not required by your mortgage company

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I've fought it but they won't let me get out of it. We refinanced in 2021 to 3.25 and I guess the loan was still large enough where they said it had to be escrowed.

Our property taxes have gone up year over year for the last few years, but not significantly. They usually send us the notice in June for the escrow adjustment in July, but they adjusted it in March of this year out of nowhere. It's up over $500/month because they're assuming our property tax will hit a certain level. Our city doesn't send property taxes for the year until April 1st and the increase over the last few years doesn't come close to justifying this increase. We're in a unique area where we pay pretty much all property taxes to our city and not our county. The county makes the home value assessment and the city uses that to calculate the property taxes. We have our own, very good school system, which a significant portion of our taxes go to.

I fought it over the phone with them for probably an hour and just gave up. They said they'll re-asses in June when they normally do and will credit back anything that's over what the account needs. That's fine, but needless to say, I'm not happy about this and am looking at any way to get out of escrow, but not sure they'll let me.

I went up about $400 per month (over the last 5 years) and I've been bitching, but after reading some of these posts, maybe I should be happy.

Mine was set to go up 300+ more on monthly note this year due to shortage… nothing changed that much but new company requires 2 month escrow cushion.

got them to take taxes off my escrow which brought it back down about 300$ and next year going to try to take off insurance and cancel escrow all together

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Keep that money invested,

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yup and I do the same when i sell properties. all proceeds into investments so i can make money on the money i will use for taxes months later. really helps reduce the tax amount pulled from original principal.

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So what is removing wind/hail going to save you? 1k a year ?

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Around $4k

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Why in the world someone would escrow us beyond me. It makes ZERO sense.

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Usually its required!