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gvibes posted:I am a lawyer I was nodding along with your much more reasonable comments that you made in this post, until I got to this point where you gave us all a critical piece of information that totally changes the context of all of your other comments. Since I'm not a lawyer, I am unprepared to argue the specific merits of having a lawyer, with an actual lawyer. On the other hand, I would not pay much attention to, say, the arguments of an insurance salesman on the necessity of buying life insurance, either. Or at least, I'd take them as a potentially highly-biased source and assume that they're going to take an extreme position. I stand by my position that a lawyer can give you peace of mind, and might be necessary in unusual situations, but most buyers probably don't need one.
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Jul 8, 2010 22:41
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A homestead deed is, I believe, a Massachusetts thing. It says if we get sued, our house is protected and can't be taken as an asset. Anyway, I'm sure there are millions of people who close a house without a lawyer and have no problem at all. But for me, paying literally %0.0075 of the total transaction price to further protect myself from a massive financial problem in the future seemed well worth it. I actually started without a lawyer, despite my agent and my father (also a lawyer) strongly recommending one. It wasn't until the bank's lawyer turned out to be a complete idiot that I hired my own.
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Jul 8, 2010 23:40
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If you're going to get a realtor, try to find one via personal recommendation. Finding one cold can lead to all kinds of problems, but my friend recommended one of her co-workers who moonlights at a real estate agent, and put simply, she was awesome, patient, guided me in the right direction, and once she figured out what I was looking for (before I had even figured it out!), she took me to a house I immediately said was "way too out of the way" but 30 seconds after I stepped inside, I was sold on the place.
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Jul 9, 2010 14:20
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Just got an estimate of closing costs. Comes out to $15k just to close. Is this normal for a first-timer? Here's a copy/paste of the charges based on our prequalification letter for a home valued at $380k and a maximum total mortgage of $366,700 with my apologies for the wall of text: ORIGINATION CHARGE $ 518.00 $ 0.00 PNC Fees ($518) $ 518.00 $ 0.00 LENDER SERVICES $ 8,713.15 $ 0.00 Appraisal Fee (1) ($435) $ 435.00 $ 0.00 Credit Report Fee (1) ($22.4) $ 22.40 $ 0.00 Flood Certification Fee ($5) $ 5.00 $ 0.00 PMI/FHA MIP/VA Funding Fee ($8250.75) $ 8,250.75 $ 0.00 TITLE SERVICES & INSURANCE $ 2,500.00 $ 0.00 Attorney Fees ($900) $ 900.00 $ 0.00 Title Insurance ($1600) $ 1,600.00 $ 0.00 Survey ($250) $ 250.00 $ 0.00 GOVERNMENT RECORDING $ 195.86 $ 0.00 Recording/Filing Fees ($195.86) $ 195.86 $ 0.00 INITIAL ESCROW DEPOSIT $ 1,434.00 $ 0.00 Hazard Insurance Escrow ($134) 2 payments @ $67.00 per payment $ 134.00 $ 0.00 City Property Tax Escrow ($1300) 2 payments @ $650.00 per payment $ 1,300.00 $ 0.00 Interim Interest: 15 days @$47.51 per day $ 712.65 $ 0.00 HOMEOWNERS INSURANCE $ 1,520.00 $ 0.00 Hazard Insurance Premium ($804) $ 804.00 $ 0.00 TOTAL $ 15,127.66 $ 0.00 Prepaid costs: $11,201.40 Closing costs (All except Prepaid Costs): $3,926.26 Subtotal: $395,127.66 Less loan amount: $374,950.00 Estimated cash required for closing: $28,427.66 I just shot the guy from PNC an email asking the following questions; am I asking reasonable questions or are all these simply standard clauses that don't ever really change: 1) What is the difference between title services and insurance totaling $2500 and title insurance totaling $1600? 2) Is the PMI/FHA funding fee a starting amount towards PMI? If so, does it count as X amount of payments toward PMI? 3) We may be going with our own attorney to look everything over; is the attorney fee negotiable if we’re using our own? 4) If we get our own homeowner’s insurance and hazard insurance, can those fees be taken off? 5) What falls under the category of Lender Services?
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Jul 9, 2010 18:34
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It depends on your state and situation, but those costs don't seem wildly off to me. Keep in mind that this list is an estimate that they are required to send you, without much attention paid to your particular situation (beyond the home price). I can also answer some of your questions: MJP posted:2) Is the PMI/FHA funding fee a starting amount towards PMI? If so, does it count as X amount of payments toward PMI? Mortgage insurance has an up-front cost plus a monthly cost. This line is estimating what your up-front cost will be. quote:3) We may be going with our own attorney to look everything over; is the attorney fee negotiable if we’re using our own? Everything on this estimate is an estimate; basically they're estimating attorney costs for the transaction. This might be your own attorney, or also other parties passing on the cost of their attorneys to you. You might have $0 attorney costs, but they are giving you a 'typical' cost. quote:4) If we get our own homeowner’s insurance and hazard insurance, can those fees be taken off? You will actually have to get your own hazard insurance (same thing as homeowner's insurance). You'll have to have that money go through the escrow account, because the bank wants ultra-secure proof that it's being paid (becuase the house is their collateral, and if it's not insured, it could be lost in a fire or whatever and then they'd have no collateral any more!). So you'll go get your insurance and the insurer will work with your escrow agent to get payments set up through them, at least for the first year. The insurance will have an up-front premium (large) and then an annual or monthly cost going forward. quote:5) What falls under the category of Lender Services? I'm pretty sure this is basically the "cost of the loan". Banks charge you a big loving chunk of money to set up all the paperwork and so forth to give you a mortgage. It's typical for it to be half or more of the total closing cost, and it's sunk money. Incidentially, it's one of the reasons why flipping houses isn't a very good cash-cow opportunity for the non-wealthy in anything other than a wildly inflating market; the cost of of borrowing is too high. If you can pay all cash for a house, you can avoid the lending cost on the buying-side, so the main cost is on the selling-side (6% split between buyer's and seller's agent). Of course there are still taxes and such to consider as well; basically if you're flipping houses, even in all-cash situations, you probably need to sell for like +12% higher than you bought just to break even. 20% and you're in a range where it's a viable way to make a living. Edit: BY the way, the reason I know the answers to a lot of this is because I had a mortgage broker. He was a great resource for explaining all the items on the cost estimates, and he was free (because the lenders pay your broker). He got us a great deal, too. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Jul 9, 2010 |
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Jul 9, 2010 18:48
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MJP posted:1) What is the difference between title services and insurance totaling $2500 and title insurance totaling $1600? 1 - Not sure, my title insurance for my $124K mortgage was $120 though. Seems like both fees are very high. 2 - What is the size of your downpayment? If you are putting down only 3.5% then you have to pay 1 3/4 points as the upfront PMI payment. I am not sure this goes down in stages at all unless you put a full 20% down. This is in addition to the monthly payments. 3 - No idea 4 - If the Homeowners/Hazard insurance isn't your own, who is it through? Before my closing I called my car insurance company, got a quote for homeowners, and they provided information to the broker to tell them how much insurance was and set up the escrow. 5 - No idea
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Jul 9, 2010 18:52
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A mortgage broker is not "free", because he gets a cut of the origination fees. The idea is that a broker has better market access than you, enough to make up for the extra cost. There are good and bad ways to take advantage of this: http://www.mtgprofessor.com/A%20-%20Upfront%20Mortgage%20Brokers/why_select_an_upfront_mortgage_broker.htm. In my case, I found a bank that would charge me only $600 plus points for an excellent rate and I wasn't confident a broker could do better. Lender Services: this seems to be mostly the upfront cost of the FHA mortgage insurance ($8k). Title insurance: There is insurance for the lender and insurance for the buyer. The seller paid for both of these in my case - what's usual may differ from state to state. Anyway the price for each was about 0.5% of the loan amount, which is in line with what you posted. The rest of your title stuff is attorney fees (<$200 for me!) Start talking to an insurance company so you can set your own policy terms and get your own estimate of the price for that. Who knows whether the estimate on your prequal letter is realistic.
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Jul 9, 2010 19:23
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So if we can get enough of a down payment to beat PMI (here's hoping both sets of parents are feeling generous to the tune of $22k between them) then not only do we not have to worry about PMI, that fee as part of closing goes away?
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Jul 9, 2010 19:26
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slap me silly posted:A mortgage broker is not "free", because he gets a cut of the origination fees. The idea is that a broker has better market access than you, enough to make up for the extra cost. Pretty much; they also, at least in theory, have your interest at heart (well, more than a bank does when offering you a loan). There are definitely bad brokers out there, and before the housing crisis, a lot of them were pushing clients into bad loans because they'd get higher fees for them. I think it's critical to know already, before you bother with a broker, what kind of loan you want (e.g., a 30-year fixed loan) and probably how much you're going to put down. In our case, we knew we were getting an FHA loan, and we had a broker personally recommended to us, who just happened to specialize in FHAs. When we made a bid on a house, he guaranteed a rate for 45 days, gave us an estimate of costs that was binding (e.g., anything over the estimate would come out of his pocket), and in the end, beat that guaranteed rate (we got 5%, in early December 2009, on a 3.5% down FHA loan for a $240k house). Just keep in mind if you're not going to use a broker, that rates vary from one day to the next. The only way to get an apples-to-apples comparison between lenders is to query them all on the same day, which is a lot of loving work.
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Jul 9, 2010 20:05
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Leperflesh posted:Since I'm not a lawyer, I am unprepared to argue the specific merits of having a lawyer, with an actual lawyer. On the other hand, I would not pay much attention to, say, the arguments of an insurance salesman on the necessity of buying life insurance, either. Or at least, I'd take them as a potentially highly-biased source and assume that they're going to take an extreme position.
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Jul 9, 2010 20:30
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Jose Pointero fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Aug 28, 2019 |
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Jul 10, 2010 20:36
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Yeah, that sounds utterly unreasonable. I'd have walked from that bank too. I will say that at least some of that 'hassling the bank constantly' should be done by your realtor, that's part of their job. It's also another mark in favor of having a loan broker - I actually never had to call the lender for anything when we bought, although our broker had to contact us for various bits of paperwork a lot, especially after five documents got 'lost' and we had to re-sign them (while my wife was in philly). That said I really do think you got an unusually incompetent loan processor there. It'll go much more smoothly with the next bank you pick, regardless, I'm sure. And you can sign documents remotely, just make sure you have access to a fax machine or a scanner.
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Jul 11, 2010 17:23
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Jose Pointero fucked around with this message at 04:21 on Aug 28, 2019 |
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Jul 12, 2010 06:56
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We've been messing with trying to buy a short sale from BoA since January and my realtor called me today, after not speaking with BoA for 3 whole weeks telling me we received the acceptance letter. It was in the wrong name.
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Jul 13, 2010 04:08
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Welp, I've had this thread bookmarked for months and finally got the inspiration to post about our real estate deal: Looked for homes in New Haven county, CT, for about 1.5 months; found one just listed on the market at $250,000. Loved it, offered $240,000 and the seller accepted (Contract date: 6/11). The sellers put a "reverse hubbard" addendum on the sale (stating they wanted to have a contract to buy before they would sell) which would expire in 15 days. We accepted this clause because we felt they wouldn't accept the offer (on their brand new listing) otherwise. Inspection was on 6/18, no problems that we didn't already know about. The hubbard addendum expired on 6/26 with no notice from the sellers. On 6/28 they asked for an extension to the now-expired hubbard addendum, which we rejected. The appraisal on their new house fell short of the offering price, so they balked, but said they had a new house lined up and agreed to an 8/10 close date. That was all we heard before the long July 4th weekend. On Sunday we got a call from our realtor that our sellers are backing out and today we got a "rescission" agreement (Rescission dated 7/10) with no mention of our out-of-pocket expenses or realtors' commissions. We have not signed the rescission, and do not plan to sign it without some further concessions from the sellers, who as far as I can tell are clearly in default. The sellers are now on vacation for a week, so we can't get any more information from them until Sunday at the earliest. We have a lawyer (actually two now) and he is helping us with this, so I know more or less what our options are. Our contract includes our right to specific performance and recovery of out-of-pocket expenses, but doesn't include the word "damages" so we might be out of luck on our intangibles (time lost on the market, etc.). It looks like now we'll have to go month-to-month in our apartment (at a 20% rent premium) for at least a month and find a new house. oneangrydwarf fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Jul 13, 2010 |
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Jul 13, 2010 15:04
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Hmm, that situation sucks for both parties, but they clearly dropped the ball when they let their addendum lapse, so you're entitled to relief. Hope it works out for you (and I hope the lawyer's cut isn't too huge!)
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Jul 13, 2010 19:48
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My girlfriend and I are thinking about buying a house sometime in the near future, we are looking primarily in the $70-80k range (small town, far from a city) with a $10k downpayment. She has a salaried job and I am a web developer, sometimes I make $3k/month, sometimes I make $300/month. My question is would it be better for my girlfriend, who has fairly bad credit, to get pre-approved, and I would be a co-signer, or would it be better if I got pre-approved, and she would be the co-signer? Which one would get us the better interest rate? Or would it not matter?
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Jul 13, 2010 22:15
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It will matter, but the interest rate on a pre-approval isn't binding at all. It's just basically a letter that can tell a seller that you're not totally hopeless for a potential loan. Keep in mind that a bank will only want to count salary from a job held for at least 2 years (24 calendar months). If you work on 1099 basis, that can be OK too, but they'll want the last two years of your income and will count that income for less (on the assumption you may make less in the future). The exact answer to your question will depend on the bank, exactly how poor your girlfriend's credit is, exactly how much each of you make in proportion to each other, and of course the house price which you've already mentioned. It might be a good idea to talk to a loan broker for advice. If you want a pre-approval from a bank, the loan officer at the bank might be able to advise you as to the best arrangement. Also, are you serious about your GF? Like, you've been together for years and you are very very sure you'll never break up? Because if you both sign for a loan, you are both 100% responsible for the loan, meaning you could get stuck for the whole mortgage if she bails. Please think very carefully about this.
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Jul 13, 2010 22:33
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I am currently living with my parents and want to move out soon. Should I rent or buy? I am in Toronto, Canada. I am 28 years old. I make $80k before taxes. I have a $100k downpayment. That will leave me with $35k in the bank. My registered savings accounts (RRSP and TFSA) are maxed out. I have no debt. I am psychologically ready to buy. I have very good job security. I want to stay where I am for a while. I can afford a $375k home and should have no problem renting out the basement. Any reason *not* to buy? Phlegmbot fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Jul 13, 2010 |
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Jul 13, 2010 23:54
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The decision is as much about your plans for the future, as it is about your financial status. Where do you see yourself in five years? Ten? Fifteen? Are you married? Do you want to be? What's your employment/career prospects? Is it possible you could be offered a lucrative job which would require you to move? Houses in general are not great investments (although rent is not an investment at all, of course). If your goal is to make that $135k work for you, there's good odds you'd do better putting most of it into a more diversified portfolio. Houses are illiquid, often depreciating assets that require constant maintenance. You're talking about tying up a large proportion of your assets in a single investment which carries a fair amount of risk. It's only worth doing if the rewards of home ownership outweigh that very substantial risk. Do you like to work on projects? Do you feel like you could do all the maintenance, or would you rather have a landlord who is responsible for that stuff? I think these are a lot of the most important considerations for buying a house. It seems like you're already considering some of them, so you're probably in good shape.
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Jul 14, 2010 01:04
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Leperflesh posted:Where do you see yourself in five years? Ten? Fifteen? Are you married? Do you want to be? What's your employment/career prospects? Is it possible you could be offered a lucrative job which would require you to move? I have no plans to move cities at all. I am not married and having been dating someone for six months. As a single guy buying a three bedroom two bathroom home, I would have a lot of room for new family members. I could be offered a lucrative job that would require me to move, but it is not likely. I already earn above average for my sector and experience level. quote:Houses in general are not great investments (although rent is not an investment at all, of course). If your goal is to make that $135k work for you, there's good odds you'd do better putting most of it into a more diversified portfolio. Houses are illiquid, often depreciating assets that require constant maintenance. You're talking about tying up a large proportion of your assets in a single investment which carries a fair amount of risk. It's only worth doing if the rewards of home ownership outweigh that very substantial risk. I understand this. I don't want to lose money on a house, but I'm not looking to gain X% either. This is a primary residence for me. quote:Do you like to work on projects? Do you feel like you could do all the maintenance, or would you rather have a landlord who is responsible for that stuff? I do like to work on projects. I could do all of the minor maintenance. I would not buy a property that required major work - roofing, electrical, plumbing, heating conversions. A little work is okay, especially stuff that is non-urgent - carpets, painting, cabinets, etc. quote:I think these are a lot of the most important considerations for buying a house. It seems like you're already considering some of them, so you're probably in good shape. Thank you very much for your thoughts.
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Jul 14, 2010 01:17
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Sounds like you have every question mark answered, Phlegmbot, I don't see a reason not to buy.
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Jul 14, 2010 14:57
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illcendiary posted:I don't see a reason not to buy.
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Jul 14, 2010 15:41
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I didn't see a refinance thread, so I'll just ask this here. 12 months ago my husband and I bought a house at 6% interest, giving us a monthly payment of $1503. We can now refinance this loan at 5%, which, by my calculations will save us about $100 a month. Is this a good idea? I think we will be paying about $3500 in closing costs. I'd like to save $100 a month and clearly we would save interest over the 30 years of the loan. I just want to make sure it's worth it to start the loan over and add a bit more in closing costs for 1 percentage point.
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Jul 14, 2010 22:16
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Haha, I'm (maybe) about to refinance my 10-month old loan at 4.375%, also 1% lower. To calculate the break-even point, look at the current amortization and the new amortization side by side. The refinancing cost either gets subtracted from the current loan balance or added to the new loan balance, depending on whether you pay up front or roll it into the loan. Then just note when the loan balance under the new scheme drops below the balance under the old scheme. That gives you a better approximation of the break-even time than the old "divide the cost by the amount saved per month" trick. Be sure you account correctly for extra principal payments; cash accumulation due to the lower payment on the new loan; and the increase in taxes (you potentially get a smaller tax deduction with the refinance because you pay less in interest). Also don't include escrow payments and prepaid interest as upfront costs.
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Jul 14, 2010 22:40
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Yeah, basically you want to know what your breakeven point will be, after taxes. It seems some refi banks want to sell you on a refi based on your overall cash savings over the 30 year loan, but that's misleading; most people will not stay in the same house for the full 30 years. Its more likely that you'll sell within the next 15 years, and for some folks, even a 7-year timeline is a reasonable guess. If it takes 7 years just to break even, and you're likely to sell in 8, it's probably not worth it.
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Jul 14, 2010 22:44
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Just to give you a feeling, I can estimate the break-even point 3 ways: Upfront cost divided by reduction in monthly payment: 25 mo Comparing amortization schedules with costs rolled into loan: 30 mo Comparing schedules but also accounting for tax at my marginal rate: 42 mo That's all assuming I continue to make the same payment I make now. I'm pretty sure I'll be here another 4 years so I'm definitely leaning towards doing it. My point really is that it matters a lot how you do the calculation and the easy estimate that's suggested all over the internet can be pretty wrong.
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Jul 14, 2010 22:50
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I refinanced after a year, knowing it would take 3.5 years to break even on it. I plan to be here longer than that, so I went with it. Slap Me Silly - They generally won't refi a loan that's less than a year old. You'll likely have to wait at least a few months.
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Jul 15, 2010 01:09
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It's with USAA - six months was enough and they'll do it no problem. Maybe most other lenders require a year, I dunno. Most other lenders charge higher fees.
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Jul 15, 2010 01:21
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Did they require another estimate? If I recall, that was one of the ways to refi shorter than 1 year... if the house value changed.
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Jul 15, 2010 01:30
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Yup, had to pay for an appraisal. I'd be surprised if anyone didn't under the current circumstances, though. If the value changed, it has gone down. :) Regardless, they will refinance up to 95% LTV.
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Jul 15, 2010 01:46
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To both of you looking to refinance, check out 30-year-fixed Home Equity Loans, and HELOCs. Some of them have interest rates around 4 to 4.5%, and unlike refinancing, you can get these at little or no fee cost. Mine cost me absolutely nothing in fees; they did a drive-by appraisal. Usually the loan can only be 80% of the equity you have in the house, but some banks will let you do what I did: I have a 75K house that I paid 35k off of. That should mean I can only get like a 20k loan with my LTV, but I made a deal where they give me a 40k loan, but pay it directly to my bank with the first mortgage. So now I have the same 40k to pay off, for me at 4% instead of 6% (I got a Home Equity "Line of Credit" instead of a "Loan", the main difference is it's variable to the prime rate, but so was my original 6% loan).
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Jul 15, 2010 02:50
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I'm doing a FHA streamline, which apparently doesn't require another appraisal. We might not stay in the house for 30 full years, but we expect to be here a long time, probably at least 15 years. I've checked out a couple of calculators and it seems to take between 1-2 years to recoup the costs. At this point, it seems like a pretty good idea.
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Jul 15, 2010 06:23
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I'm thinking of buying a house again, but trying to figure what I should do with the money I saved up for now. I'm hoping someone with more experience can tell me which method I'm thinking of is better. I have a large sum of money in savings. Would like to get a 15 year mortgage. Method 1: Put down 40% down payment and pay minimum monthly payments. Method 2: Put down 10% down payment (assuming getting same interest rate as the 40%) and pay double on the minimum monthly payments for 2 years, then going back to minimum payments for remainder of mortgage.
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Jul 15, 2010 16:57
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ijii posted:I'm thinking of buying a house again, but trying to figure what I should do with the money I saved up for now. I'm hoping someone with more experience can tell me which method I'm thinking of is better. With Method 2 you probably have to pay PMI. Why not put down enough to get out of PMI?
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Jul 15, 2010 17:53
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crazyfish posted:With Method 2 you probably have to pay PMI. Why not put down enough to get out of PMI? Or would have... Just found out an hour ago the company I work for is taking major steps to reduce cost and labor in the department I work. I won't lose a job... today, but who knows in five years if they try to further reduce cost and labor by outsourcing it to a centralized location. So that means I won't be going for a house in light of this situation 
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Jul 15, 2010 21:31
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Good news is you have a pretty health emergency fund in case of layoffs!
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Jul 15, 2010 21:41
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gvibes posted:I think that's looking at it backwards. What's his reason to buy? If he's getting a 3 BR/2 ba, he is going to be paying taxes/utilies/etc. on a lot of stuff he doesn't need. That's wasted money there. What would interest on his mortgage and property taxes be? Maybe 1400-1500 a month? What kind of rental can he get for that much in the area he wants to live in? Sounds like he won't actually need a bigger place for quite some time. I am betting he can rent a decent 1 BR for 1400-1500+utilities a month. I would do that, and just keep on saving. Budgeting for utilities, insurance, home repairs, etc., renting a one bedroom + den for $1400 per month and buying a house for $375k work out even in my books. This does assume I'll be renting out my basement for $600 a month. Realistically, basements in the area go for closer to $800. I try to be very conservative in my budgeting. If I am unable to rent the basement, I would be able to carry the place on my own for many many years - and that's without adjusting my lifestyle at all. Phlegmbot fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Jul 16, 2010 |
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Jul 16, 2010 05:36
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slap me silly posted:Yup, had to pay for an appraisal. I'd be surprised if anyone didn't under the current circumstances, though. If the value changed, it has gone down. I was wrong. My house has appreciated 1.5% in 10 months. Not that I take that number seriously, but still, cute.
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Jul 16, 2010 17:22
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Regardless, they will refinance up to 95% LTV.
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Closed on my house today............and there was much rejoicing. Trip report: The process was very smooth (used USAA mortgage and Ticor Title) -- USAA guaranteed the 26th and we were able to close on the 22nd. If you're on the west coast, Ticor more than met my expectations. I've heard some bad things about USAA (the loan is actually through GMAC I believe), but I can't complain thus far. My closing costs were almost half what my realtor estimated them to be (which was a purposeful overestimation...but still). Ended up going with a 5/1 adjustable ARM because the rate of 3.45% was just too amazing to pass up -- I only plan on living in the house for about 5-7 years so the ARM made the most sense anyway (I believe the math is that the fixed costs less than the ARM in year 7 or 8 depending on your assumptions for interest rate changes). Now all I have to do is buy a shitload of furniture. Not looking forward to shopping and/or dealing with the denizens on Craigslist. But at least the government is giving me $8k.
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Jul 23, 2010 05:23
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