Recent content by Irvine2Irvine

You said that the breakeven point is 11 years.  Is that including all the closing costs?  Penfed does not have any closing cost.  In my opinion, it depends on how long you are going to stay at your house.  If you are staying less than the breakeven point, then it's a no brainer.  If you are...

I know the Vista Del Verde neighborhood very well.  I used to work close by and I almost bought a house back in 2002 in Vista Del Verde.  I put a deposit down on a new house but backed out when my wife decided she did not want to move out of Irvine. The bad: Yorba Linda does get much hotter...

Where in Yorba Linda is the house?  That will affect the drive time considerably. East Yorba Linda has access to 91 and 241 toll road.  The traffic is ridiculous on 91 during commute times. If the house is in the Black Gold golf course development, then you have access to 91 and 57.  However...

Your kids will learn to speak Spanish in no time. Thomas Jefferson Elementary ?Rigorous enrichment program for English speaking and Spanish-speaking students ?Core curriculum taught in both languages

Those San Marino homes on Redfin have many builder picked upgrades already built in to the house.  I think that's the main reason for the price premium.

Wonder if they have discount for Sonoma residents?  Honey, I am going for a walk...  :-*

My Sonoma home has both types of windows, "flush" and "recessed" throughout the house.  The window covering company told me this when they came out to give me quote and I started wondering about why I had two different type of windows.  Here's what I found out by careful observation. The old...

Swiss coffee is off-white.  It's not close to beige.  It is more white than Navajo White that used to be popular a while back.

I bought Sonoma and the "preferred" lender was BofA.  I did not give them much thought thinking that they would not be competive.  It turned out that they weren't too bad on their rate.  Not the lowest but below average rate.  I still went out on my own and got quotes.  The Amerisave.com...

Over the years, Penfed had some great products.  For a few years, they had the best 5 yr CD rates which I have used. Right now they have a great auto loan rates.  2.49% for new OR used car loan.  You can refinance your current loan from another bank also.

The best I found is Hanscom Federal CU.http://www.hfcu.org/current_rates_and_yields.html?tab=1 Prime - 0.5% which currently is 2.75% with ALL closing costs paid.  You only have to pay the closing costs if you close the HELOC within 2 yrs of establishing it.

Who knows?  Maybe the rate will spike up and come back down and be lower in 5yrs?? Not likely, but not impossible. I was definitely going to use this loan until the 30yr fixed dropped during the aberration last September and the spread was only 0.5% between this loan and 30yr fixed. ...

Woodbury elem used to be El Camino Real Elementary.  I think all the staff moved from El Camino to Woodbury. Even back then, it was considered an inferior school compared to most Elementary schools in Irvine.

Swiss Coffee was standard at Sonoma.

I don't know how they come up with 5/5 rate, but it should not matter.  Currently, the rate is 3.25% with 0.5pts.  The maximum they can raise is 2% every 5 years with a cap of 5% above the initial rate, which makes the max rate 8.25%. There are bunch of my coworkers who got this loan after I...