I'm not going to badmouth the family, but refinancing for a hundred thousand over the original mortgage seems a tad greedy on their part as well.

I can say this: I am damned glad to have a conventional, fixed-rate mortgage. I am even happier to have enough in solid reserves to pay off the mortgage completely if I had to do so.

A true story of commercial greed and punishment:

There is a former mall here which is pretty much empty -- its parking lot is used by some truckers, sometimes a used car dealer will have "special sale" -- that sort of thing. But otherwise it is empty and simply deteriorating. There are also some asbestos problems -- nothing that can't be fixed, but asbestos none the less.

A VERY major chain approached the owners to buy this property.

"Eighteen million dollars," said the owners.

"In POCATELLO, IDAHO?" shot back the potential buyers. "We don't pay that much for land in Las Vegas!" And they walked away. (They are building elsewhere and will probably open in the Fall.)

But the owners then went to the County and asked for a reassessment. They felt that they were paying too much money for a deteriorating property.

Now, property taxes in Idaho are based upon market value. And the Assessor's Office had a copy of the letter from the owners saying that the property was worth eighteen million dollars....

Yup. Tax hike, and a substantial one. And the property is still empty.

Folks around here are still laughing about this....