Coming up for air

This month, we have two house-related events to celebrate: first, the fourth anniversary of our closing, and second, the paying off of our second mortgage.

We took out a second mortgage rather than pay PMI, or rather, B did all of these things, since we weren't married when he bought the condo. The second mortgage was necessary because we didn't have a 20 percent down payment. It wasn't due to general slackitude - real estate prices around here are high, and they were even higher 4 years ago.

You would think that we would now have equity in our home--but if you thought that, you would be wrong. You see, real estate prices have also dropped about 20 percent. So we've worked very hard these last few years to...not be underwater anymore with our house. 'Tis a bittersweet accomplishment.

I thought that an appropriate reward would be a little refinancing action so we could lower our rate and make our payments toward our primary mortgage count even more. However, a call to a local mortgage broker turned up only bad news. First, our mortgage is not through Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, so we don't qualify for the government programs that require only 5 or 10 percent equity to refinance. Instead, we'd have to wait to refinance until we had 20 percent equity, or refinance now and pay PMI.

Yes, PMI, even though we've already paid down 20 percent. If we refinanced, we'd essentially be starting from scratch, as if we were taking out a loan for 100 percent of the value of our condo. All of our efforts for the past 4 years would not count. And we'd be stuck with PMI for 5 years or until we paid down 20 percent of the new loan.

Now is a good time to remind myself, as I have been reminding myself since real estate prices dropped, that life can still be great even when parts of it aren't fair, and that expectations of fairness in life will lead only to disappointment. And technically, we won't realize a loss on our condo until we sell it, and we don't plan to sell for several more years at least. By then we'll have more equity.

On the bright side, my Dunkin Donuts index tells me that the economy is coming back. People are back to paying for their daily morning coffee. Parking lots of local area shopping complexes are full again. The bargain basement hotel deals of last year are difficult to find this year.

That last one isn't really part of the bright side, but I appreciate that it is a sign of a recovering economy.