We made our first mortgage payment today. We have less money in our account now, but I’m still excited about it because it means we now own 25.1% of The House (as opposed to 25% based on the down payment). Woohoo!
We got our mortgage through ING, and I have to say, I couldn’t be happier. I’ve been saving with ING for at least 5 years, and I enjoy that the interest rate tends to be a bit higher than elsewhere and it is easy to set up an automatic savings plan. But the mortgage has been amazingly hassle-free. ING touts its morgages as low cost because its costs are lower: you are required to make automatic electronic payments and they don’t send you statements. Frankly, I try to pay all my bills online anyway, so there is no downside here. Our closing costs were low, and our real estate agent said ING was incredibly easy to work with and got everything on its end done super fast, so we were actually able to close early.
If you haven’t checked out ING, you might consider it. ING will give you $25 if you open an account with a minimum balance of $250 through a referral link (and the referrer will get $10). Here is a referral link, if you are interested:
Happy Saving!
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