Mortgage Escrow Is A Main Reason Nobody Likes Their Servicer

[00:00:04] You're listening to Casual Talk Radio, where common sense is still the norm. Whether you're a new or long-time listener, we appreciate you joining us today. Visit us at CasualTalkRadio.net And now, here's your host, Leistor. I'm a bit tardy. I apologize. I am a bit tardy.

[00:00:24] I have a good reason for being tardy. I'll provide an update. Thank you for joining. Thank you for joining again, depending on your situation. Casual Talk Radio, my name is Leistor and I am your host. Situation was this, without over specifics.

[00:00:40] In the new, so back up, there was a time for contracting reasons. So for my own, you know, work where I was working independent, I used to have, you know, travel was a frequent thing for me.

[00:00:55] For anybody who may have been traveling for work or anything else, whether you, you know, we're talking flights. I don't do it anymore, but back then. So what would happen from mine is I got sick of TSA.

[00:01:09] I got sick of what you can and cannot carry in the bag. I got carried sick of the, you know, the bottle can only be this size and, you know, soaps and none of which is going to really keep you safe.

[00:01:20] But that's, that's what they defaulted to because they're stupid. But I figured, okay, I'm not doing this anymore. So what I decided after fighting it for years is rather than taking stuff with me, like all my different shampoos and soaps and all the liquids, you know, shaving stuff.

[00:01:39] I figured I would just buy what I needed, travel size when I got to the destination. And although, you know, it's like 20 bucks or something, although it's an expense and it's not reimbursable, it was better than dealing with the nonsense of the TSA.

[00:01:55] So I would get to the destination. I would find the nearest Walgreens in most states I've been in. Walgreens is 24 hours. They're open 24 hours. I have not seen until I came to this place a Walgreens that was not 24 hours.

[00:02:13] I get here and one morning I had an issue and the issue actually originated when I was 18. The only person, and I'm assuming she's still alive but I haven't talked to her in a while,

[00:02:27] but the only person who knows the specifics of that situation is my first girlfriend. She was there when it happened. I don't know if she said anything to anybody. She might have, but as far as I know, she's the only one that knows at that time.

[00:02:45] That issue happens and then it starts reoccurring roughly every five years like clockwork. Then five years passes and it doesn't happen again. So I figure, okay, I'm cool. Well, I woke up this other morning about two days ago and it happened again

[00:03:04] and I didn't expect it because it had been so long since it happened. And it had just went away later or earlier today. I have a different issue, but this one, this major, I consider major issue because I could have died.

[00:03:20] Came back and then I needed something very simple. And usually I can get it from, usually I have it and I have crates for all my bathroom supplies and it's usually in there because I don't use it on a frequent basis.

[00:03:35] I can always fall back to it and I left them in the crates. I'm in the middle of the move, right? And I left the crates here on purpose for like a week and a half because I wasn't sure

[00:03:46] if I was going to need anything out of the crates and I'm just like this. If I think that I'm going to need something out of it, I'm hesitant to move it first. Week and a half passes don't need it.

[00:03:58] All right, take the crates up there to the house. It's roughly two hours away. I get back here and then that following morning, 5.30 a.m. I get up, situation happens. The one thing I need that would have helped me is in the crate two hours away

[00:04:13] and I have to do something now. In my head I'm thinking, okay, I'll just go to Walgreens, fine. So I go to, I'm looking at Walgreens. In this place there's only one Walgreens that's 24 hours and it's not crazy far but it's further than I would like

[00:04:29] because I'm used to having a walking distance. All the other ones are like, yeah, we open at 7. Here I'm, again, it's 5.30 a.m. but they're not 24 hours. They only open at 7 and they close at 9 which is nuts.

[00:04:42] So I drive all the way up to this 24-hour Walgreens thinking, okay, fine, whatever. Get up there, get what I need. I also need stamps. I get to the Walgreens. I'm looking for the item. It's not here. I've always gotten it from Walgreens.

[00:04:56] It's always there because it's a common, it's actually a very common item and it's only a dollar. Ask the lady behind the counter, yeah, we haven't seen that in a year. I'm like, what are you talking about? She hasn't seen it in a year.

[00:05:09] This is a common, what do you mean you don't carry it anyway? So apparently they stopped carrying it, just stopped carrying it. So now I have to drive all the way back down to my place which is the apartment I'm sitting in now

[00:05:20] and there's a store nearby which is a, it's basically a grocery store. It's a local grocery store. Go in there and lo and behold, it's there. A grocery store has this item that has nothing to do with groceries

[00:05:32] but yet Walgreens where the item belongs, it's not there, whatever. Grocery store has five left. I clean them out. I just bought all five screw it because I'm not dealing with this if you're discontinuing it. I don't think they are. I think they're just being stupid.

[00:05:45] I just cleared them out and got all five. The grocery store doesn't sell stamps like you're so and you're like go to the post office. I can't. The post office out here is essentially a glorified bungalow somewhere in the sticks. It's far. It's not close.

[00:06:03] So I can't do that. They don't have like a postal annex. They don't have the, you know, if you're from these big cities you understand you can go to postal annex. You can go to this place, this place and the post offices

[00:06:14] all yanked or they might have that machine. The one that's close doesn't have the machine. The ones that have the machine, they don't take cash and then they used to have the little standing like it looked like a gun ball machine but you can buy stamps in there.

[00:06:29] They got rid of those. So it's harder to buy stamps than it used to be. They want you to go to site and print stamps. I need the stamps for regular letter size envelopes the ones you print won't fit on those.

[00:06:41] So I can't get the stamps I need from this grocery store. I got this other item that's fine but I still need to get some freaking stamps. So now I gotta go to a different place which is actually right down the hill from where I'm at.

[00:06:54] They sell stamps, God, I got the book of stamps, fine. But now it's been an hour and so the issue has already gotten really bad and the item that normally would work isn't working like it usually would have. So now I'm not freaking out but I'm concerned

[00:07:10] because I can't function when this happens. I have no full range of motion even now with a different issue I have no full range of motion. This is a different problem but that one, no full range of motion. I can't really walk straight. I can't do anything.

[00:07:25] I can't function like I'd like to because of the situation that is exacerbated by the Walgreens not deciding to be 24 hours like I need them to and I just luck of the draw the one item I need I happen to have moved it two hours away.

[00:07:40] So now I'm dealing with this and that affects basically the yesterday upload because I can't function. I can't do what I need to do in order to sit down and record for you guys. It finally stopped or I should say halted briefly and that would have been

[00:07:59] early this morning. I think it was early this morning. Pretty sure it was. If not early this morning it would have been yesterday. I can't relate yesterday but one of the two it temporarily stopped and then I sneezed and when I sneeze

[00:08:15] it makes it, it just restarts all over again. It's debilitating. It's not fun. Unfortunately allergies it's horrible out here. So I sneeze, it starts up again and I'm struggling to stop it. I'm not having very much luck and so I'm having to struggle.

[00:08:34] I got to get back up to the house because that's where my internet is that's where I'm doing the work. I do have backup internet but it's limited I can only have 10 gigs on the hotspot. So I do what I can to mitigate it

[00:08:47] so I can get the frick up there knowing that my item doesn't work because it took too long to get it started I get all the way up there and then you know I'm doing the best I can to function and eventually it's starting to slow down

[00:09:01] and I can see that it slowed down and it's not as bad as it was. That's good. There's a little bit of something but it's not as bad as it was. So okay, I go through the day looking seeing it really be nice to frickin finish my office

[00:09:15] painting. I'm trying to repaint it. Finish my office, get it cleaned up get my desk installed and I can't because I'm dealing with this thing I'm basically useless. And then I'm fighting vendors because I'm trying to get other stuff done on the house and that's not fun.

[00:09:30] Later in the day I check, looks like it's passed this issue is passed at least for now I sneezed again when I couldn't control it didn't start up again I had again the different issues started but the main issue didn't start again

[00:09:45] so it looks like it's calmed down for now at least for another 5 or 10 years assuming I lived that long and I figure okay, let's go ahead and try to get some painting done. So I finish up the painting in the office paint in the ceilings

[00:09:58] paint in the walls did all the stuff in the off and then let it air out and I did most of the painting in the master I didn't get done because I ran out of paint but after this then I get a pain and it's muscular pain

[00:10:14] because I'm painting ceilings I'm painting walls I'm doing moving stuff it's not fun but I have to do it but I've been useless for so long that I don't have the same strength that I normally should have that's where I am right now

[00:10:31] so then I came back here in pain and I'm in pain right now and my high level recording stuff is back at the house and I forgot to record there so I'm recording on my backup this is actually my old school

[00:10:47] R's technical 2100 that I've had for a decade and a plus amazing microphone with a with a pile recorder and the pile recorder is part of what I normally record on for you guys but I didn't need to because this audio technical is amazing

[00:11:04] when you hook it up with some other sound cards that's what my past couple days have been like fighting fricking vendors fighting fricking pain fighting fricking nonsense and then getting old on the up note, I guess up note I finally found a dealer

[00:11:24] that's willing to actually fix my fricking car the one I want to keep the downside is that for them they're going to need to have my car for a couple of days that means I need to get the backup up there

[00:11:35] that means I need to drive the backup up there I've never driven that car anywhere near, it's like a close to 100 mile distance you might think it's not a big deal but I've never driven that car that long so I don't know there could be something that happens

[00:11:52] I'm not sure so now I've got to carry my backup stuff like my emergency phone and all my supplies and stuff to hopefully get him up there but I have to figure out how to do this because I'm 100 miles away so

[00:12:08] I'm trying to get a mover to see if they can deliver the car up there as part of the move and they're not calling back I'm going to say vendors that don't want to call back this is my life ladies and gentlemen fighting fricking vendors fighting fricking pain

[00:12:23] fighting fricking age that's what I've been struggling with so yes, I do have a compelling reason for why I'm late for the episode because I'm too busy fighting nonsense instead of being able to relax for a change somebody my age

[00:12:37] should not have to deal with stupidity like this I think I'll accept a bit of karma I'll accept that because it is true that I pissed a lot of people off, that's true so I'll accept this bit of karma at the same time it's like

[00:12:55] a level of bad that I even I never expected anyway that was my story and I'm sticking to it it was not the topic believe it or not, I know I ran it for a while that was not the topic the topic is back to home buying

[00:13:09] and more specifically escrow so for anybody who is in the process of or considering being in the process of buying a home that has never done so before this is for you if you've done it before you know what I'm talking about

[00:13:29] either you heard about it or you're familiar with it from direct experience there's the concept of an escrow and the escrow is an account held by your mortgage company from which they use the funds to pay off things like homeowners insurance, your taxes and everything

[00:13:49] and then they create a lump sum payment for your monthly so let's say your mortgage is $1200 and as part of the escrow they expect you to pay in let's say 500 bucks a month into escrow and then that gets paid out to different entities on your behalf so your

[00:14:07] payment is actually $1700 not the 1200 that you thought it was going to be there's nothing wrong with that because you still have to pay those things however I opted out of escrow this time the first time I bought a house I did an escrow I'll never forget

[00:14:25] I had bought this home in Washington state and the mortgage payment I want to say it was like $1400 it was nothing because the rent when I bought it rented it rather it was $1500 something $1525 when they were going to renew it they came back with like $2200

[00:14:47] and I was like screw you bro absolutely not which was the only reason I decided to buy because I couldn't find another rental that had all the features I wanted for a decent price so I decided to buy they came back with a $1400 rent

[00:15:05] now the mistake I made is number one I did FHA number two I did less than 10 or 20% down I think I did like 5% down or some crazy something it was not it was nowhere close to the 20% that I'm telling people you should do

[00:15:19] so I did and it was a state program that was a scam more on that later between the fact of his FHA the fact I did 5% down those two forced me to have mortgage insurance MIP MIP as well as an escrow and forced you to have it so

[00:15:41] the $1400 quoted number ballooned to over $2000 I believe it was $2300 you're like why the heck was this so high you had taxes taxes were sky high out there that's how they get you so even though there was not even though there was not the concept of

[00:16:03] which one I think it's I think they didn't have sales tax one of the two I did a sales tax and have income tax I think it didn't have sales tax but there's no tax so the taxes on the home or higher the mortgage insurance

[00:16:17] which was $300 a loan homeowners insurance you know all these different fees and all this stuff every month and yeah it was like 900 bucks on this business above and beyond the 1400 so the 1400 essentially is a scam and because I did the state program that's where they

[00:16:37] scammed me when my boss at the time I was making a certain level income and I was right at the threshold to get what's referred to as a mortgage certificate the mortgage certificate if approved was going to give me $3000 as a tax credit every year

[00:16:55] and I qualified when I applied when I got to the closing table by that time my boss had lobbied to get me a raise the raise is only like 6% we're not talking a lot of money but it got me close to the threshold for this mortgage certificate

[00:17:13] when I got to the closing table they said well we can't you can't do that why not because you got that raise and you might get the same raise again next year which it would disqualify you if you did and you might end up

[00:17:29] going to like the raises are discretionary it's not guaranteed you don't get a raise every year and I couldn't give you docs I got HR to offer a letter to tell them this is not discretionary it was a one-time raise it's highly unlikely he'll get it again

[00:17:47] they said the whole process they said will you put in writing that he will never get another raise and HR wouldn't do it because they can't guarantee that depends on what's going on so they took that mortgage certificate they wouldn't have signed it the $3000 per year tax credit

[00:18:05] a tax credit if your bill is $3000 and you get a tax credit of $3000 your tax bill is zero it literally takes away from the bill so it meant I was never going to have a tax bill because my income was nowhere

[00:18:19] close to what it is and it was refundable so some of the money would come back if I was under the threshold so losing it not only am I paying more money because of this escrow but because I'm losing this it's basically putting me in the red

[00:18:33] that's why I say the state program is a scam the escrow then because it was required because I did less than 20% down and it was FHA I was doing research on my current because my current mortgage got sold to a different company I was doing research on them

[00:18:53] and I noticed a pattern of feedback which was that people were pissed off at pretty much every mortgage company possible and it was a common thread it was all related to the escrow everybody was complaining about how much higher it makes your mortgage payment because they dictate

[00:19:13] your servicer how much the escrow monthly has to be and they can require you to pay over and above the actual amount that's due because they want to have Pat, they want to have extra money on hand so everybody who has negative feedback it's not just me

[00:19:29] I wasn't going crazy it's because of this escrow business as such my advice to you is this if you're considering buying a home if at some point in the future you're going to buy a home if you're in the process of buying a home I'm going to advocate

[00:19:45] that you figure out a way although not easy but that you figure out a way not to pay less than 20% down figure out a way if you can not to do FHA FHA being a government program is a scam in my opinion and I would say do 20% down

[00:20:07] and then tell the whoever you're trying to get the loan through that you don't want escrow you'll pay the taxes directly prepay the homeowner's insurance for a year do everything you can to minimize that monthly so it's predictable easily managed easily dealt with this is a recommendation

[00:20:31] you can do whatever you want to do but I'm telling you from experience that that was brutal brutal for me, brutal for other people and I wouldn't want to see other people get stuck in the groove where your this beautiful mortgage of $1400

[00:20:45] that gets you out of rent of $1800 turns into $2300 simply because your service for things is a good idea so that's escrow it's a scam in my opinion personally so is FHA state programs, I think it's a scam I don't and will never

[00:21:05] suggest that it's easy to do it without these things I'm saying I would recommend trying not to use them if you can because I think they set you up for failure I think they're a trap separately then let's talk about this business of Joe Biden medical bills

[00:21:23] but Joe Biden passed an executive order that was pushing or I guess he put in a submitted a proposal or whatever but it was pushing to make it to where medical bills that you owe and you're behind on which I haven't been in the situation yet

[00:21:39] but that you're behind on don't jack up your credit score because the thought was that it's affecting people's ability to buy a home or ability to get loans or ability to do things and I think that's what I'm trying to do is make it not count at all

[00:21:55] some people say well that means they're not going to pay the bill if you don't have a disincentive to do it I say if you're going to make the argument that we should not ding people's credit because we're concerned about the ability for getting more loans

[00:22:13] which is really about the economy at the end of the day like if you think about it you're going to get more loans credit cards whatever it's going to hurt those banks but that's what the banks wanted they wanted this credit score that's discriminatory

[00:22:27] that's what they asked for they got what they asked for you wanted a system that purposely discriminates against people because of whatever and you assume that they can't pay you back whether it's a medical bill or not if you're going to do it for one

[00:22:43] we should be able to do it for one because we're going to be able to if you're going to do it for one we should junk the whole damn system because it's not doing its job if you can't trust the number that you're given

[00:22:57] because it's telling you that because people have these medical expenses on their credit that they're not they're not going to pay the bill to the point that the Biden administration wants to try to negate the impact on credit scores

[00:23:11] you have to make that case for pretty much everything because it's the same problem if somebody can't pay a medical bill let's say there was a story about a lady who had a bunch of medical expenses that came out of nowhere she didn't expect them

[00:23:25] she can barely make her ends meet but she has this medical bill she chose not to pay it well the whole point of the credit scoring model in the first place was to identify where somebody simply chooses not to pay the bill

[00:23:37] gets into collections the collection is going to ding you a lot of those debts are bought they're purchased by collection companies collection company dinges your credit so it could be hospital main takes a hit collection company takes a hit everybody's taking a hit why is it okay

[00:23:53] to then wash those from the credit scoring but not say a credit card let's say you had your credit card and you maxed it out on medical expenses because you had no other way to do it you maxed it out you couldn't pay it back

[00:24:07] cause you just lost your job or unless you were disabled again it's a slippery slope I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't do something I'm saying if you're going to do that you should probably do it across the board to be fair and equitable

[00:24:19] the whole damn system is corrupt the whole credit scoring system is corrupt it's telling it's using computers to tell banks lenders even rental companies who is not trustworthy and it skews largely towards those that don't need the money if you don't need the money

[00:24:39] the credit score is going to be higher I actually stopped there was points multiple points over my lifespan multiple points where I just flat out stop paying stuff what happens my credit score goes up when I'm paying for stuff my credit score goes down explain that

[00:24:55] I can because I used to work for the bureau it's simple if you stop paying on something that is a debt or collection or something else if you just don't pay let's say it's collection it's all dependent on the amount if it's like a $5, $10, $20

[00:25:11] it's not going to ding you but nowhere near as bad and then time passage the passage of time the age of accounts place positive in your favor assuming you're not applying for credit because the inquiry that gets dinged whenever you ask for credit poses negative

[00:25:29] so if you don't apply for credit you let time pass and assuming you have some positive accounts that were already closed the age of accounts place in your favor that means you can essentially gain the system but again it's biased towards people that don't need the money

[00:25:45] because if you're in a situation where you don't need to apply for credit while you're sustaining somehow that means you don't need the money you don't need loans you don't need credit cards you don't need the money if you're not applying which is why I'm saying

[00:26:01] that the system is slanted towards those people that's why it's a scam that's why I'm saying that if Biden wants to do this with medical bills they could do it across the board and choose not to they could have done it during COVID

[00:26:13] which is when it really mattered any negative anything no negative reporting for the span of COVID and you cannot go retroactive act like they never happened give everybody a fresh start they could have done it they didn't do it so I was kind of pissing it

[00:26:29] again nothing we shouldn't do anything but you could have done more you could have done more for more people and you chose not to and that's my beef with all of that business anyway I'm gonna wrap up today it actually wasn't a short episode

[00:26:45] but I ran out of it but I think it's difficult to say this but I don't like I don't like what's happening recently with Biden in all these things that he's doing now that he should have been doing the moment he walked in

[00:27:01] office instead of listening to the Greta Thunbergs of the world because these are things that he should and could have been doing the moment he went into office and he probably had better scores than he does now and now that he's doing it at this point

[00:27:15] it's like he's pandering this is a guy who threatened Americans and all of a sudden he wants to do right by Americans come on you're transparent we see right through you bro meanwhile I'm gonna get back on my stuff in pain though I may be

[00:27:29] I'm gonna get back on my stuff I'll apologize again for the latest of the episode hopefully you understand I had a real strong mitigating reason it was not by choice it's not even by choice that I'm this late I actually plan to record it

[00:27:45] and release it at least 8 hours ago unfortunately other stuff got in the way and now I have to play catch up the next time of course my episode will show up next this following Monday and hopefully by then I'll be fully moved out of here

[00:28:01] because if I can get a mover hopefully to get Saturday or Sunday to get a mover out to get my stuff because I don't have a lot left I've already moved some of the critical stuff out of here

[00:28:15] I don't have a lot left just the stuff that's in storage at this point if I can get it all done we're looking good and then I'll just have one throat to choke that'll be a really good thing once I get my studio set up

[00:28:27] we're on the road and we're back in business and I may go back to twice a week I think about that one fortunately there hasn't been too much craziness to talk about I know there's the whole Hunter Biden business I'm not going to talk about that

[00:28:43] there's the Trump business I'm not going to talk about that what I may decide to talk about though is the forthcoming election from a certain demographic who at one point swore that they would always vote Democrat and now have flipped the script perhaps I'll dig into that

[00:29:01] on this coming next Monday's episode and share my thoughts on what I felt I'll even play some audio if I can track it down again