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[nimblebear]

So I'm seeing on Zillow that my home price has appreciated from $391k to $431k since last March. In fact, my home value is only 12% off its all time high. Its really making me feel quite flush, especially with all the appreciation in my 401k since March 09. I just re-fi'd and took out about $20k in cash, and went from a 20 year loan @4.75 to a 15 year fixed @ 3.25%. Thus, I now have 62% equity in my home. I had been thinking about lowering my loan amount, by 20k, which would have given me 70% equity, rather than doing something silly like putting it into stocks. But then I'm thinking wait a second. This is nearly free money, so why should I not take the gift that keeps on giving from Benny ? During the re-fi process, the assessor was actually quite conservative, but the home still assessed out about $420k. Homes in our hood have been selling in 30 to 60 days for the past year, so thats not too shabby. So basically, now I can afford a new pool, without having to lift a dime out of my savings. (effectively). I'm so excited I can barely contain myself, so I thought I'd share it all with you. Maybe everyone else is feeling the same way, and thats why we are seeing this bounce in the economy ??? for me, it would be a piece of cake to simply pay off my home i its entirety and be so called "debt free", but I'm thinking why not use OPM ? Everyone else did this for the past 20 years, and took cash out while I was paying my home down. A pool is an investment in fun and in family time. So isn't it time for me to enjoy the spoils that everyone else has ??? And again, I can pay off the new mortgage amount in a NY minute, and still have way more cash in the bank than any bank deserves to have, with the anemic payouts they give to patsies like me. Time to go smoke a stogey, and sip a margarita. Thank you Ben Shalom Bernanke. !