Well I lived like a King in my little town. Now that I'll be moving to the Des Moines area I'm probably going to have to downsize. I'm cool with it, they wife will have to adjust. We loved our home, but there is no way we could afford something like that in a good neighborhood where we are going. If I'm a celebrity, I'm sure not getting any perks!

yeah, I don't think we will qualify for that. We had our home for 4 years and 9 months or something. Effin government.

you talk fancy.

I didn't know you were moving. If I may ask, what for? New job, or just decided to make a change?

Carthago non delenda est!

I heard on the news that mortgage rates have hit an all time low.

I made a slight career change a few years ago. Instead of focusing on fundraising, I do more consulting and communications work. My wife works in Des Moines and I have an office there now too. The only thing keeping us from making the move was our home. Since we didn't want two mortgages, we held off on moving until we sold it.

My main focus is my political website that focuses on Iowa politics. I also have a national political site that is more video based.

I have my hands in a lot of different things, so I need to start keeping regular office hours. I've been a free spirit for the last two years, it's been great but its time to focus again.

I didn't know it would make that big of an impact. I'm going to check into doing this...that's a huge difference.

So using this payment calculator - http://www.hsh.com/calc-amort.html - you would knock 10.5 years off your loan and save almost 40% on the interest by paying an extra 25% per month. Heck, paying even 10% more per month will cut your loan by 5.5 years and interest by 21%.

Same thing on car loans. With car loans you don't even have to pay more just pay 2-3 weeks earlier than the due date. Say your payment is due the 30th. Pay it on the 15 every month and you can knock off a year on a 5 year loan.

That sucks man. I think - just what a mortgage friend told me - you have to of lived in your house for 5 years and buy another house by April 30th.

Wow. That's good news to know when we get into our new house.

While I don't disagree with anything you have said, it's important to note that all this advice is only relevant if you plan to stay in your home the full 20x plus years. If not, then really you're giving the bank an interest free loan on your money.

Agreed but it’s certainly a gamble to buy a house right now, at least that’s what I told Mrs. Radar when we were looking at the house we bought last summer.

This inspired me to check on the price of the mini-mansion near our house. They lowered the price by $70,000, but it's still notably out of our price range. It's a good buy, though, if anybody is in the market for a Denver mini-mansion.

The haunted mansion a few blocks to our west was a steal if you didn't mind the lost and angry spirits. They lowered the price by more than $250,000 and it's now under contract. The asking price when it sold was only $639,000, so they probably paid less for it. It needed at least $300,000 of stonework repairs, though.

I dip into your website frequently, usually several times per week :thumb: