Your House Is Hiding Money: Savings Most Mortgage Holders Never Find (Colorado Springs Edition)
Most mortgage holders never find the savings hiding in their escrow account, PMI, property tax assessment, and insurance. Here is where to look, in the Colorado Springs Edition.
Your monthly mortgage payment may be hiding money you have already paid. A recent Realtor.com story highlighted how many mortgage holders have savings sitting right under their noses that they never find, and nationally an estimated $125 billion or more sits idle in homeowners' escrow accounts alone. That is money you have already paid that could be put back to work.
Most of the homeowners we meet in Colorado Springs have no idea how much of that they might be holding themselves. So here is a calm, practical walk through the real, verifiable places mortgage holders find money, and what to do about each one. None of it takes a finance degree. It takes an afternoon and a few phone calls.
1. Check Your Escrow Account
Your lender holds money in escrow every month to pay your property taxes and homeowners insurance when they come due. That is the system working as intended. But lenders can over-collect, and when they do, homeowners may be owed a refund, or may be able to lower the monthly escrow payment.
Pull out your annual escrow statement. It shows what was collected, what was paid out, and what cushion is being held. If that cushion looks large, or if your payment went up while your taxes and insurance stayed flat, it is worth questioning. A short call to your lender can turn an over-collection into a refund or a lower payment.
2. Cancel Your Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI)
If you bought with a conventional loan and put less than 20% down, you are likely paying private mortgage insurance, or PMI. It protects the lender, not you, and it is not a small line item. It can run hundreds of dollars a month.
Here is the part most people miss: once you have paid down to 20% equity, or your home value has risen enough to get you there (often after two years), you can ask your lender to remove it. It does not happen automatically for every loan, and lenders have specific requirements. But for homeowners who have watched their Colorado Springs home appreciate, dropping PMI can feel like giving yourself a raise.
3. Appeal Your Property Tax Assessment
Every year Colorado counties set the assessed value that drives your tax bill, and those assessments do not always match the market. The good news is Colorado gives homeowners a way to contest them. The catch is that most homeowners never look, even in years when assessments rise sharply.
In El Paso County, property tax appeals are filed with the El Paso County Assessor, and there are deadlines you will want on the calendar. If your assessment jumped and you can show your home is worth less than the county thinks, an appeal can lower your bill for years, not just for one season.
4. Review Your Homeowners Insurance
Insurance rates climb year after year, often quietly. The policy that made sense when you bought your home may now be paying for coverage you do not need, or missing discounts you qualify for. Shopping the same coverage with a different carrier, adjusting your limits, raising your deductible, or bundling your auto and home policies can save hundreds of dollars a year.
Here in Colorado, wildfire risk and changing coverage rules make an annual review genuinely worthwhile, not just a chore. One phone call asking your agent "is this still the right policy, and is this still the right price?" is often all it takes.
5. Look at Recurring Bills and Subscriptions with Fresh Eyes
The fifth place feels less like real estate and more like housekeeping: your recurring bills and subscriptions. Streaming services you forgot you had, gym memberships you stopped using, add-ons on a car you sold. It adds up faster than anyone wants to admit.
Then take whatever you free up and put it to work. An extra payment toward your mortgage principal each year can shave real time off your loan. If the amount is not enough to move the needle on the mortgage, an emergency fund is a close second. Either way, you have stopped paying for things you were not using and started building something instead.
What This Looks Like in Colorado Springs
All five of these apply to homeowners here in Colorado Springs and El Paso County, but a few are extra local. Property tax appeals go through the El Paso County Assessor, so the deadline and the paperwork are your neighbors', not some distant state office's. And because our market has seen real swings in value, the equity math on PMI and on your escrow cushion can move faster than it does in slower markets.
This is also part of why we do what we do. We routinely help clients understand exactly what their monthly payment includes, where the money is going, and what they might be leaving on the table. It is not just about buying or selling a home. It is about making the home you already have work harder for you.
Want Us to Help You Find It?
If you have questions about your payment, your escrow, or what your home is actually worth right now, we would love to look at it with you. We have walked thousands of Colorado Springs homeowners through exactly this, and we will tell you straight what is worth chasing and what is not.
Text us at 719-499-9394 or Book a free consultation.
Jeff & Lane Morrell | eXp Realty
This information is general and current as of October 2026. Figures such as the national escrow estimate come from published reporting, not our own data. Every loan and every local rule is different, so please verify the details that apply to you with your lender, your insurance agent, and the El Paso County Assessor before acting.