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House Hunt
01-31-2016, 11:23 PM
Well, I'm on my way to achieving a big chunk of the American Dream. I just finished house hunting with my realtor and made my decision. Right now I'm not sure what I feel about the entire process.
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fear, probably a healthy dose of fear and uncertainty it comes from making long term investments like property
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At least you have good timing. (Now is the time to get a mortgage, before the rates climb again.)
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Quote:ordnance11 wrote:
Well, I'm on my way to achieving a big chunk of the American Dream. I just finished house hunting with my realtor and made my decision. Right now I'm not sure what I feel about the entire process.
As a word of note, there's likely going to be at least one point you're going to question your sanity... and that's only because of the sheer amount of records they're going to ask you to cough up in the next month.
My husband and I bought a house this last September. Both the best and worst thing we've ever done.
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Well, the loan officer gave me a preliminary estimate. I'll have to check with payroll and see what my net monthly pay is going to look like for my new job. I have an 11 percent raise, but is it going to be enough?
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The thing is, the loan officer is supposed to take your pay into account when determining whether you qualify for a loan. (Supposed to. During times like the years leading up to the Great Recession, they don't do their due diligence and will offer mortgages to your dog, but we're still in the recovery from a real estate crash, so it's probably safe to assume they're still being paranoid.) Your projected monthly payment should be equal to or below 25% of your net (take home) pay for a month in order for the bank to reasonably offer you the mortgage. That should include any escrow if the bank insists on handling (or you've decided to let them handle) your property taxes and insurance. If it's not, don't forget to factor those two into your "real" monthly payment.
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Quote:Bob Schroeck wrote:
The thing is, the loan officer is supposed to take your pay into account when determining whether you qualify for a loan. (Supposed to. During times like the years leading up to the Great Recession, they don't do their due diligence and will offer mortgages to your dog, but we're still in the recovery from a real estate crash, so it's probably safe to assume they're still being paranoid.) Your projected monthly payment should be equal to or below 25% of your net (take home) pay for a month in order for the bank to reasonably offer you the mortgage. That should include any escrow if the bank insists on handling (or you've decided to let them handle) your property taxes and insurance. If it's not, don't forget to factor those two into your "real" monthly payment.
That may be what financial advisers recommend, but I actually worked for a mortgage company for a while and a) they based the debt to income ratios on gross income, and b) the mortgage to income ratio was 28%, while the total debt to income ratio was 36%. That was over twenty years ago, so I probably shouldn't try to make any claims about current rules.
Note: people generally like to close on the last day of the month. That's because otherwise you have to cough up the interest for the number of days between when you actually close and the end of the month at settlement. If you can afford a couple days of interest, it might be worth it to close a little earlier so you actually have time to go through the documents thoroughly.
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Well, back to square one. The house I picked was alsready under contract. Now who is at fault for a) not updating the database or b)who should had made sure that the house was being sold when it was shown to me, Idon't know. But tomorrow, I'll be looking again.
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Well, 1 step forward and 2 steps back. I found a place that would be suitable, but for two flies in the ointment. The loan officer I was dealing with went
To another bank. So I have the option of either following her or wait for another loan officer to come around and deal with me. Of course that meant going thru another loan application. And I found out that I'll have to mail a request for Experian to lift my credit freeze this time, since I've been going going once too often to the well. So that means pulling it all in at Kinko's since an IPad is not going to do it. And then I had to wait for 20 minutes for the Kinko's clerk to tell me that only the post office can do a priority mail to a P.O Box. This dream is starting to be a nightmare.
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Well, last week..looked again, picked a house and made an offer. The agent's seller made a counter offer. The realtor, loan officer and myself scrambled for the last 2 days to accept the counter offer. Not to find out that the seller's agent ratified another offer. Don't these guys have some sort of Code of ethics or something. So back to square one and looking again. Grrrrr.....
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Quote:ordnance11 wrote:
Well, last week..looked again, picked a house and made an offer. The agent's seller made a counter offer. The realtor, loan officer and myself scrambled for the last 2 days to accept the counter offer. Not to find out that the seller's agent ratified another offer. Don't these guys have some sort of Code of ethics or something. So back to square one and looking again. Grrrrr.....
Sounds like the market there is hotter than Denver's is... we only had one "offer and fail", but without the back and forth. We got one on the second try at placing an offer. Now, we looked at about 50 houses, but we also had criteria to meet and a nice comfy timeframe.
Hang in there. If anything, read the various bits of "PeeJee's House Hunt" in the last several months of the webcomic Something Positive. At least you're finding houses to bid on.
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Thanks. At least you guys are better than my relatives. They're asking me why don't you just get an apartment while you're house hunting. I had to explain that
1) I'd end placing what money I had set aside as a deposit rather than using it as earnest money, and then cough up more money as earnest money.
2. I'd have to unpack then pack again. And pay the movers to pack and unpack. I'd rather do it once.
3.) I'd end up either paying money to beak the lease or pay an exorbitant monthly market rental rate.
And then I told them, aren't you guys suppose to cheer me up rather than indicate I quit looking?
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When buying I did have the advantage of being somewhere with very cheap rent (I was renting a room from a friend at work, and she had no idea or interest in the general market value), so I wasn't in a hurry.
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Quote:ordnance11 wrote:
Thanks. At least you guys are better than my relatives. They're asking me why don't you just get an apartment while you're house hunting. I had to explain that
1) I'd end placing what money I had set aside as a deposit rather than using it as earnest money, and then cough up more money as earnest money.
2. I'd have to unpack then pack again. And pay the movers to pack and unpack. I'd rather do it once.
3.) I'd end up either paying money to beak the lease or pay an exorbitant monthly market rental rate.
And then I told them, aren't you guys suppose to cheer me up rather than indicate I quit looking?
...your relatives must live someplace where rents (and deposits) are cheap because demand isn't there.
We bought a house (we'd talked about the idea prior) when we did because we were seeing, at most, another year before Denver's incredible stratospheric rise in rental rates would have forced us to move anyway (we'd had something like a $150-200 increase for our second year in the apartment). So we figured we'd make every effort to make it the last move, and lock in what we were paying. I'd be shocked if we aren't paying less than our third year rent would have been set at.
That's really the other reason to buy - locking in the monthly payment for decades.
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Quote:JFerio wrote:
Quote:ordnance11 wrote:
Thanks. At least you guys are better than my relatives. They're asking me why don't you just get an apartment while you're house hunting. I had to explain that
1) I'd end placing what money I had set aside as a deposit rather than using it as earnest money, and then cough up more money as earnest money.
2. I'd have to unpack then pack again. And pay the movers to pack and unpack. I'd rather do it once.
3.) I'd end up either paying money to beak the lease or pay an exorbitant monthly market rental rate.
And then I told them, aren't you guys suppose to cheer me up rather than indicate I quit looking?
...your relatives must live someplace where rents (and deposits) are cheap because demand isn't there.
We bought a house (we'd talked about the idea prior) when we did because we were seeing, at most, another year before Denver's incredible stratospheric rise in rental rates would have forced us to move anyway (we'd had something like a $150-200 increase for our second year in the apartment). So we figured we'd make every effort to make it the last move, and lock in what we were paying. I'd be shocked if we aren't paying less than our third year rent would have been set at.
That's really the other reason to buy - locking in the monthly payment for decades.
It's more of the case they've lived in the same house since 1985 and it's bought and paid for.
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Alright good news...I found a house that's good enough. Made offered and it got ratified! Huzzah!. I dropped off the earnest money check at the realtor's. For me the fun question is the closing cost. The seller will provide a closing cost credit. I use to have 4k in closing credit from a non-profit, but since my loan officer jumped banks, I don't have that. What I do have is a lower interest rate in return. I guess time to go to the credit union and get a loan for the closing costs.
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When I bought the property next door to my parents I arranged to have the closing cost included in the mortgage loan is there any way you can do the same?
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Yeah, we did the same with both our refinance deals.
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Well, talked to my loan officer and she allayed my fears. The contract gave me closing cost credit from the buyer. So inspection visit this weekend.
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Update..inspection visit went well. A few minor dings that the seller agreed to repair. The earnest money check cleared. Just have to wait for the VA appraisal to come around.
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Take heart
03-03-2016, 03:18 AM
Take heart - this is likely going to be one of the most stressful things you ever do.
Getting married (and staying married) is a doddle compared to buying that first house. Fear, uncertainty, lawyers, bankers and agents oh my. Each has their own agenda, and keeping you sane is not on anyone's to do list (it is advantageous to all concerned that you are a bundle of nerves.)
It gets better. Really it does.
Shayne
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Quote:Rev Dark wrote:
Take heart - this is likely going to be one of the most stressful things you ever do.
Getting married (and staying married) is a doddle compared to buying that first house. Fear, uncertainty, lawyers, bankers and agents oh my. Each has their own agenda, and keeping you sane is not on anyone's to do list (it is advantageous to all concerned that you are a bundle of nerves.)
It gets better. Really it does.
Shayne
I'm doing 2 stressful things right now...new job in a new area and a new house.
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Quote:ordnance11 wrote:
I'm doing 2 stressful things right now...new job in a new area and a new house.
Having done the dance, I'd say new house ranks up there. You'll definitely see when you're submitting insurance proof and bank statements and phone bills and tax records and what seems like every single piece of paper you've ever had to retain for records for the fifth time in two weeks. (That's at least what it felt like.)
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Well, the latest snag....the VA appraisal came to 15k short. I can raid my retirement account, but I'm going to let my realtor handle it and see if they can at least meet us halfway.
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