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Koruthaiolos posted:I'm not sure if I should post this here or in one of the DIY threads so if it's out of place just let me know. One thing to make sure of is that all the proper permits and inspections were done. This should be something that you discuss with your home inspector, and if the sellers renovated it themselves they should be glad to show you copies. If they didn't go through the proper permitting process that is an absolutely huge red flag, you have no idea what is behind those walls, and when you do open them up you may have to redo everything to get it up to code.
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# ? Mar 23, 2012 21:47 |
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# ? May 21, 2024 07:35 |
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Zeta Buttforce posted:That is true. If you are that underwater on your house, no one is going to want to refinance you for anything approaching market rates. I would be surprised if the credit union would have offered you 4% after they did an appraisal. It pains me to say it, but in this case Bank of America gave good advice and you are fortunate to get 4.6% because they didn’t even have to do that. This is actually not all that true under HARP 2.0, particularly if we're dealing with a primary residence. Fannie Mae has implemented some pretty strict caps in terms of the negative pricing adjustments that can be applied to your loans, meaning the difference between say an 80% loan and a 150% loan is minimal, if anything at all. That said, your lender is free to apply whatever pricing adjustments they want so you may still end up getting fleeced for the higher LTVs. BoAs explanation that the credit union may "not have been aware you were underwater" is mostly bullshit. If anyone is interested, you can see the Fannie Mae pricing adjustments for the DU Refi Plus and Refi Plus (FNMA's HARP products) at https://www.efanniemae.com/sf/refmaterials/llpa/pdf/llpamatrixrefi.pdf As an example of what I'm talking about higher LTVs not being significantly penalized, first you'll want to take a look at table 3 which has a breakdown of the pricing hits that are applied based upon your credit score and appraised value of the property. To keep things simple, assume >105% LTV and you have 2 borrowers, one of whom has a 550 credit score and the other a 710. If you find the corresponding pricing hits in the grid you'll notice that the 550 borrower will get a pricing hit of 3.00, the 710 will have a hit of 0.500 (higher is worse). Now look at the middle third of table 2. Assuming we're on a 30 year loan, Fannie caps the pricing adjustments for >80% loans at .750. So the 550 borrower saves 2.250 in pricing hits because of the cap, and effectively only has a .250 worse price than the guy with the 710. Pretty sweet deal right? If it was a 15 year loan there would be no difference between their rates. As I mentioned above your lender may choose to hit you for it anyway, but many lenders will adhere to Fannie's guidelines. Note that these caps ONLY apply to HARP loans, regular refis and purchases are still out in the cold. I believe Freddie has implemented similar changes, but trying to make sense of their LLPA equivalent documentation makes me want to kick puppies and I don't really deal with loan pricing as an underwriter. Another thing to keep in mind is that due to the nature of how the industry works, retail shops (LOs in Chase, BoA, Wells bank branches or specially branded home loan centers are a good example) will, generally, have the less competitive interest rates than mortgage brokers or correspondents. This is because broker and correspondent shops (typically credit unions, smaller community banks, and non bank affiliated mortgage originators) have a large number of lenders to choose from and so their lenders have to offer them better rates to entice them to bring loans to them instead of the next guy. Retail LOs, on the other hand, typically can only send their loans to their own bank so there's little incentive for the bank to give competitive rates as they can't take the loan anywhere else anyway. If people are interested I can go into more detail about the HARP changes, loan pricing, the secondary market, whatever. Just let me know what you're interested in and I'll do my best. Captain Windex fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Mar 24, 2012 |
# ? Mar 24, 2012 01:58 |
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All that is interesting, and most of that I didn't know. One question I have is how common are these deals where the borrower is 150% upside down? Is is something in theory that can happen according to the law, or are lenders ramping up these refi programs?
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# ? Mar 24, 2012 23:25 |
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Zeta Buttforce posted:All that is interesting, and most of that I didn't know. One question I have is how common are these deals where the borrower is 150% upside down? Is is something in theory that can happen according to the law, or are lenders ramping up these refi programs? Well, HARP 2.0 (which switched from 125% max LTV to theoretically unlimited LTV) was initially implemented in December of last year but that iteration only applied to the loans that could be manually underwritten, meaning your existing loan servicer had to be participating and you had to go through them which limited the number of people who were eligible. Just this last weekend Fannie and Freddie rolled out the system updates to their automated underwriting systems which will enable borrowers to go through other lenders which should open up a shitload more people to being eligible to refinance under these programs. I haven't seen a whole lot of them so far, but it's been available less than a week. I expect we'll start seeing a truckload of these deals roll through in the immediate future as we get through our submission queue and as the LOs start submitting loans that they previously had to turn away due to being too underwater.
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# ? Mar 25, 2012 00:08 |
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Captain Windex posted:This is actually not all that true under HARP 2.0, particularly if we're dealing with a primary residence. Fannie Mae has implemented some pretty strict caps in terms of the negative pricing adjustments that can be applied to your loans, meaning the difference between say an 80% loan and a 150% loan is minimal, if anything at all. That said, your lender is free to apply whatever pricing adjustments they want so you may still end up getting fleeced for the higher LTVs. BoAs explanation that the credit union may "not have been aware you were underwater" is mostly bullshit. This was a very enlightening read and I am of course extremely interested in any insights and updates you have regarding the refi market. Is this also accurate,the current PMI company can just torpedo my whole refinance, by refusing any company but the original lender?
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# ? Mar 26, 2012 00:01 |
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CatchrNdRy posted:Is this also accurate,the current PMI company can just torpedo my whole refinance, by refusing any company but the original lender? Theoretically, sure. The MI company has to agree to transfer the mortgage insurance certificate to the new loan, if they refuse to do so then your lender can't do much other than decline your loan as they have to have the certificate transferred otherwise the loan is not saleable to Fannie/Freddie and now they have a massively underwater loan on their books that they are entirely on the hook for if you default. That said, assuming you meet the HARP program requirements and the MI company overlays (which for the MI companies we work with are pretty minimal) there is little reason for the MI company to decline to transfer the cert since you're likely reducing your payment and consequently be less likely to default. The resistance to transferring the MI cert is more likely to be on your lenders part. As I mentioned previously, transferring MI certs from other lenders is apparently a pain in the rear end so we will only do loans with MI where we are the existing servicer. I don't really follow what other lenders are doing, but from what I've heard from talking to our customers it sounds like a lot of lenders are taking a similar approach. I'll try to get a big effort post out in the next few days about HARP 2.0 for you guys.
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# ? Mar 26, 2012 00:41 |
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Captain Windex posted:Theoretically, sure. The MI company has to agree to transfer the mortgage insurance certificate to the new loan, if they refuse to do so then your lender can't do much other than decline your loan as they have to have the certificate transferred otherwise the loan is not saleable to Fannie/Freddie and now they have a massively underwater loan on their books that they are entirely on the hook for if you default. When you say "lender" do you mean my current lender or the one I tried to get refinance the HARP loan? The refinancing credit union was good to go, till the loan officer checked on my PMI status. She suddenly seemed dour and said it wouldn't work with that PMI company. Would it be a fruitless task for me to attempt to personally get the PMI company to agree to transfer? I already talked to customer service of the PMI company on the phone, and they seemed confused that they wouldn't accept the refinance, but didn't offer me a solution other than that.
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# ? Mar 26, 2012 02:06 |
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CatchrNdRy posted:When you say "lender" do you mean my current lender or the one I tried to get refinance the HARP loan? The refinancing credit union was good to go, till the loan officer checked on my PMI status. She suddenly seemed dour and said it wouldn't work with that PMI company. By lender I mean whoever you're going through for your refinance. As to speaking to your current PMI company, might help but I'd be a bit surprised if it made a difference. My bank won't give a poo poo that the you've spoken to your MI company and they're willing to transfer, but other banks may be willing to work with that. I suppose it can't hurt to ask the credit union if that would change anything - they've already said it's not going to work so probably can't get any worse.
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# ? Mar 26, 2012 02:16 |
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Captain Windex posted:By lender I mean whoever you're going through for your refinance. Apparently the PMI company does allow transferring, they even provided me a form on their website. I contacted the credit union again, and was told they don't deal with MGIC: MGIC requires an exclusive contract from the lender or they won't approve. CatchrNdRy fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Mar 26, 2012 |
# ? Mar 26, 2012 21:54 |
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I have a question about earnest money (Specifically in NC). We're not going through a broker or a firm for the selling, I'm buying the house directly from the current owner. Earnest money has never come up, as we've never thought of it. Now the bank I'm getting my loan through is asking for an earnest check. Is this required for a loan, and what do we have to do to make it valid in the fastest way possible?
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# ? Mar 26, 2012 22:01 |
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Gothmog1065 posted:I have a question about earnest money (Specifically in NC). We're not going through a broker or a firm for the selling, I'm buying the house directly from the current owner. Earnest money has never come up, as we've never thought of it. Now the bank I'm getting my loan through is asking for an earnest check. Is this required for a loan, and what do we have to do to make it valid in the fastest way possible? Do you not have an earnest money requirement in your purchase contract? Earnest money isn't necessarily a requirement of a loan, but it's rare to see a purchase loan without one in the contract unless it's between family members. I'm not sure what you mean by not going through a broker or a firm - there should still be a settlement agent of some sort handling the closing whether that's escrow, title, or an attorney. Assuming you do have earnest money in your contract, typically your bank is looking for a 1 or 2 month statement from the source account showing the withdrawal of funds and evidence the settlement agent has received it (an escrow receipt with a copy of check #1234, the cancelled check showing it was made out to ABC Escrow Inc, a copy of the wire confirmation showing the transfer, etc).
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# ? Mar 27, 2012 01:40 |
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Untagged posted:Do Never Buy... I just received notice that my one-bedroom apartment will be going from $1200 to $1300+ a month if I sign up for another year's lease. There are several condos in two nearby communities that I've been keeping my eye on over the last few weeks. One or two of which are 2bd/2ba in the $150k-$160k range. Even adding their HOA/Condo fee, property taxes, and a few other items to the mortgage, at 30 Years they still seem to have quite a bit of savings over the $1300+ rent. I know this thread's opinion on condos, but if I'm committed to staying in this area for at least the next several years...and a condo would suit my needs in the short term... gah, I need you all to convince me out of making an appointment to go look at them. This just happened to me last week. From $1200 to $1500. Austin Texas Housing and Rental Market
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# ? Mar 27, 2012 18:06 |
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I wasn't able to see if this has been posted but I was curious if any canadain goons have used the Home Buyers Plan to help get them a house? http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/tpcs/rrsp-reer/hbp-rap/menu-eng.html From my understanding you take up to $25,000 out in RRSPs as a ``loan`` from the government of which you then have 15 years to pay it back. In order to qualify for this you have to be a first time home buyer, which myself and my common law partner are. Is there anything that I'm missing from this? Seems an easy way to not only bump up my RRSPs but also a fantastically easy way to get $50,000 as a down payment on a house.
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# ? Mar 28, 2012 05:04 |
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spaceship posted:This just happened to me last week. From $1200 to $1500. Yeah, I should update this. I waited one week to get back to them, and because of the "market" it's now up at $1400 for the same place. This housing market ::.
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# ? Mar 28, 2012 12:30 |
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Rent is going crazy in Austin. I bought a 2 bedroom condo for 94k and my payment is $730, and I was paying like $835 when I was renting a 2br apartment a year ago. There's some cheap stuff in the hills area northwest of far west/loop 1. There's also a lot of bus routes here so you're not stuck driving, I take it downtown every day.
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# ? Mar 28, 2012 21:08 |
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Captain Windex posted:Do you not have an earnest money requirement in your purchase contract? Earnest money isn't necessarily a requirement of a loan, but it's rare to see a purchase loan without one in the contract unless it's between family members. I'm not sure what you mean by not going through a broker or a firm - there should still be a settlement agent of some sort handling the closing whether that's escrow, title, or an attorney. Assuming you do have earnest money in your contract, typically your bank is looking for a 1 or 2 month statement from the source account showing the withdrawal of funds and evidence the settlement agent has received it (an escrow receipt with a copy of check #1234, the cancelled check showing it was made out to ABC Escrow Inc, a copy of the wire confirmation showing the transfer, etc). We're redoing the purchase contract now, and the attorney that is doing our closing, etc took the earnest money out of the equation. I think with this we won't be having issues. I'm just really enjoying the underwriting process right now.
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# ? Mar 28, 2012 21:17 |
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Konstantin posted:One thing to make sure of is that all the proper permits and inspections were done. This should be something that you discuss with your home inspector, and if the sellers renovated it themselves they should be glad to show you copies. If they didn't go through the proper permitting process that is an absolutely huge red flag, you have no idea what is behind those walls, and when you do open them up you may have to redo everything to get it up to code. Talking to the seller's agent, he has the permits, all the receipts from everything he did, and all original documents/manuals for everything he's bought for it. He seems super dedicated to the renovation. When we visited it a second time he was out front putting new sod down on the city owned portion of land between the sidewalk and street. He also gave us a packet of pictures of the whole renovation process which was pretty cool. It basically feels like a 100 year old brand new house.
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# ? Mar 28, 2012 23:09 |
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Excelsiortothemax posted:I wasn't able to see if this has been posted but I was curious if any canadain goons have used the Home Buyers Plan to help get them a house? I'm not sure I understand what you're thinking. The plan allows you to each withdraw up to 25k from your rrsp to buy a house, and you have to repay that money you took out back to the account within 15 years. That won't "bump up" your RRSPs, it will reduce them until you pay it back.
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# ? Mar 28, 2012 23:19 |
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pram posted:Rent is going crazy in Austin. I bought a 2 bedroom condo for 94k and my payment is $730, and I was paying like $835 when I was renting a 2br apartment a year ago. Yeah, it's pretty nuts. Our rent is going up only $30 a month and I'm thanking my lucky stars (I tried to talk them down and the message, nicely stated, was "You know how tight occupancy is here? If you don't want it, we know people that do"). At this point, we can either pay a lot for a slightly nicer place, or pay a lot less and wind up in a much less nice place. We looked around a little bit and there were very few 1BRs even becoming available around when we'd want to move, much less that precious combination of cheaper + reasonably nice + good location + actually has apartments. There was one that was cheaper but it had some horrifying mold issues, per the tenant reviews and pictures.
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# ? Mar 29, 2012 03:53 |
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Where can I find information on the changes to adjusted up front cost and the annual premium, in regards to FHA streamlined refinancing?
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# ? Mar 29, 2012 06:09 |
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And so it begins. They tell me this pile of dirt and rocks will magically morph into a house by the end of June.
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# ? Mar 29, 2012 06:18 |
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Seik posted:
The end of June? 90 days is pretty aggressive, but doable. Depends on how long it takes to pull permits and get various inspections and what not.
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# ? Mar 29, 2012 09:29 |
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Excelsiortothemax posted:I wasn't able to see if this has been posted but I was curious if any canadain goons have used the Home Buyers Plan to help get them a house? Canadiansuperking replied also, but I'll repeat with further info. The program is for people who have contributed money into their RRSP (and received the tax benefit...). The program allows you to withdraw up to $25K from each persons RRSP (you and your spouse are required to have seperate RRSPs if you want to go for the full $50K). So, the money you 'get' is really just your own money that you've already saved. The point is that you get tax benefits from saving the money in an RRSP and don't lose those benefits if you use the money as a first time home buyer. Normally if you withdraw money from your RRSP it would count as income and you'd pay normal income taxes on it, negating the tax benefit you received. The condition on the withdrawal is that you must "pay it back" (to yourself essentially) to your RRSP over the next 15 yrs. This program helps you only in certain situations, sometimes it's not a good decision. If you have a retirement plan in mind with monthly contributions and this withdrawal would be decreasing your retirement fund, then you're essentially moving your retirement money (presumably invested in something: bonds, stocks, etc) into a real estate investment. If you buy into the whole 'real estate is a can't lose market', then it's not a bad choice, if you follow this thread and see the risk in the housing markets, then it's not necessarily a safe, retirement fund friendly investment. If you want to invest in real estate with your retirement money, there are better options like REITs, etc that don't lock your money into one building. On the other hand, if you have a block of money saved for a downpayment and want to add some more to it, putting the money into an RRSP (assuming you have the cap space) and adding the tax refund to your downpayment can be a good play. My wife and I, for example, have $50K on hand for a downpayment. I had cap space in my RRSP (like $90K allowed to be put in for me, you find this number on your tax assessment form)so I deposited $25K into my RRSP and due to my tax situation, I received around $8K back in a tax refund. So, we've essentially added $8k to our downpayment fund. When we're ready to buy, I'll withdraw that $25K from my RRSP. As it's not money from our planned retirement fund, I'm not affecting our retirement plans and because I pay monthly into my RRSP already, the 15 year payback is not an issue. This post is really long, so I'll stop here, hopefully the program is clearer.
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# ? Mar 29, 2012 17:28 |
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Is refinancing really as expensive as basically paying closing costs again? ($8k or so on our house, I think) I'd love to lock in a lower rate and get it over the my credit union but man that's nuts. I wouldn't mind $1-2k or so out of pocket I guess. I have a current rate of 5.75% and my CU is offering 3.375% for a 15 year fixed with 0 points. I think we could qualify for that as my credit score is over 800 and my wife's was only "low" (low 700s maybe?) three years ago because she didn't have a long credit history. Would raise our payments approximately $100 a month.
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# ? Mar 29, 2012 19:37 |
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dreesemonkey posted:Is refinancing really as expensive as basically paying closing costs again? ($8k or so on our house, I think) I'm currently refinancing. Your first closing costs included pre-funding both your first year of insurance payments and your first year of homeowners insurance, which probably accounts for half of that 8k. When you do a refinance, you do still have to prefund the escrow account but the other one will be disbursed back to you when the old mortgage is paid off. Beyond that, you just pay the title charges, transfer charges and the setlement charges and any origination fees you choose to accrue (many lenders also charge "processing fees" which is an additional origination fee in disguise). The non-lender fees in my area are about 2200 dollars, for example. Most lenders will give a very low cost refinance in exchange for 1/8 or 1/4 extra on the interest rate, too.
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# ? Mar 29, 2012 20:44 |
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Next-Gen posted:I'm currently refinancing. Your first closing costs included pre-funding both your first year of insurance payments and your first year of homeowners insurance, which probably accounts for half of that 8k. When you do a refinance, you do still have to prefund the escrow account but the other one will be disbursed back to you when the old mortgage is paid off. Thanks for the information. I'm going to be calling my credit union tomorrow to see approximately what it would cost me. It would be great to get a lower rate and be at the bank where everything else I have is so it would be extremely simple to look at my loan balance and throw some extra money at it now and again. I'm quite excited
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# ? Mar 29, 2012 21:01 |
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I've been pretty happy renting an apartment up until now, but I'm wanting a bigger place and rents seem to get pretty high on larger places, so I'm starting to look into buying for the first time. No debt, ~21k savings, and I'm socking away about 1k a month, plus I have about 6k in IRA assets. It looks like getting the location and features I want would probably take somewhere in the $110-130k range--how much should I have piled up before I start seriously looking?
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# ? Mar 29, 2012 22:57 |
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$40 to $50k at minimum if I were in your shoes.
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# ? Mar 30, 2012 03:59 |
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Gabriel Pope posted:I've been pretty happy renting an apartment up until now, but I'm wanting a bigger place and rents seem to get pretty high on larger places, so I'm starting to look into buying for the first time. No debt, ~21k savings, and I'm socking away about 1k a month, plus I have about 6k in IRA assets. It looks like getting the location and features I want would probably take somewhere in the $110-130k range--how much should I have piled up before I start seriously looking? You'll want $30k for downpayment and closing costs, plus at least another $10-$15k for various things you'll probably want to do (new paint and carpets for a 1000sf house will be somewhere in the $6k range). After that you'll want 3ish months of expenses still left over in savings. I had $18k left over after my down payment and spent more of that than I was comfortable on things I wasn't entirely anticipating. The popcorn ceiling contained asbestos - extra $1200. I have an electric dryer but there wasn't an outlet for it - extra $800. Doing the above delayed my move for a month - extra $1500. Even if you're super careful (I was), new houses just kind of steal money from you. Oh yeah, don't do what I did and open up a credit account at Home Depot for the sweet 10% off until after you take possession. The credit pull + increased utilitzation cost me .25% on my mortgage.
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# ? Mar 31, 2012 22:24 |
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SmutAnEggs posted:Where can I find information on the changes to adjusted up front cost and the annual premium, in regards to FHA streamlined refinancing? http://www.google.com/search?hl=en-US&ie=UTF-8&q=fha+up+front+mip+changes should get you started. I got more specific numbers for my Fha refi from my mortgage broker (who is an fha loan specialist). Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Apr 1, 2012 |
# ? Apr 1, 2012 06:26 |
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I suddenly find myself in the market for a house. My dad thinks now is the time to buy since prices are so low, and that I'm throwing money away on rent, and so has decided to give me another $10,000 towards a down payment. Between that and about $10,000 I can comfortably pull out of my 401(k) I think I can afford about a $200,000 house. I kind of have my eye on this house and this one. My only real question at this point, is how necessary is it to get a realtor involved? Can I do everything myself? I don't know a lot about houses but I can certainly get a book or something and learn.
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# ? Apr 1, 2012 14:33 |
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CornHolio posted:I suddenly find myself in the market for a house. My dad thinks now is the time to buy since prices are so low, and that I'm throwing money away on rent, and so has decided to give me another $10,000 towards a down payment. Between that and about $10,000 I can comfortably pull out of my 401(k) I think I can afford about a $200,000 house. This has to be an April Fools joke. I refuse to believe after all the progress you've made you'd even be remotely considering taking money out of your 401k. So, I'm calling this the Cornholio 2012 April Fool's Day joke.
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# ? Apr 1, 2012 14:37 |
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CornHolio, I think you should put at least 10% down (20k) so I would take another 10k out of the 401K. You'll make that back in equity when the housing market bounces back up anyway, so it's worth it. And yes definitely get involved with a realtor as the realtor will be able to open the lockboxes for you and email you contracts to sign.
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# ? Apr 1, 2012 14:52 |
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zaurg posted:You'll make that back in equity when the housing market bounces back up anyway, so it's worth it. Oh man, follow that advice at your own risk.
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# ? Apr 1, 2012 16:43 |
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balancedbias posted:
Are they conspiring on a tag-team April Fool's joke?
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# ? Apr 1, 2012 17:18 |
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So, the search begins. As a follow up from my last post, according to our lender, the decree in my wife's divorce settlement showing that she is not responsible for the house her and her ex husband bought will work for our loan approval. We're most likely going FHA and from what I've heard, with an FHA, there is no point in putting down more than 3.5% unless we're going to put down 20%. We just don't have 20% to put down and I'd rather not kill the rest of our assets trying to lower the mortgage payment. I know we'll be paying PMI so I'm factoring that into our monthly payment. The Houston market is looking to be a buyers market so we're trying to jump in now. Anyone have experience with purchasing new/used townhomes? That is a possibility since we want to stay in the city and are a little cautious about buy an older home that is going to need work. Most of the houses in our budget and area are from the 1940s - 1960s. While they have great charm and some of them have some great energy upgrades, I'm not crazy about how much extra work is necessary or what could be seriously wrong with it in the next 2 years. This is all so exciting and frightening at the same time.
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# ? Apr 1, 2012 17:28 |
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Tricky Ed posted:You'll want $30k for downpayment and closing costs, plus at least another $10-$15k for various things you'll probably want to do (new paint and carpets for a 1000sf house will be somewhere in the $6k range). After that you'll want 3ish months of expenses still left over in savings. Thanks for the breakdown--I'll admit I hadn't really considered upkeep & repairs in upfront costs. Most of the listings I'm looking at would be fairly recent construction so I might be able to skate by on a little less, but I see my hope of being ready by the end of the year is definitely overly optimistic.
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# ? Apr 1, 2012 17:31 |
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$50K in cash needed for a $110K home purchase? Seriously? I wonder what percentage of first time buyers have 50% cash before their first purchase.Gabriel Pope posted:It looks like getting the location and features I want would probably take somewhere in the $110-130k range--how much should I have piled up before I start seriously looking? I'm not telling you to buy right now, but you have the cash to do it if you so desire. Consider: - if you continue stockpiling money for two years before buying and rates rise, your payment could higher than if you bought now and paid a little PMI (if you do less than 20% down) - what's your rent vs what will your mortgage payment be? How much of that 1K savings will be eaten up by housing costs? - I wouldn't touch your IRAs
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# ? Apr 1, 2012 17:38 |
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Realjones posted:$50K in cash needed for a $110K home purchase? Seriously? I wonder what percentage of first time buyers have 50% cash before their first purchase. Not enough which is why the housing crisis happened. Also if he's looking at $130K houses, that's not even close to 50% of cash. $21K in savings is not enough to buy a house that costs more than $80K.
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# ? Apr 1, 2012 18:04 |
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# ? May 21, 2024 07:35 |
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I Might Be Adam posted:So, the search begins. As a follow up from my last post, according to our lender, the decree in my wife's divorce settlement showing that she is not responsible for the house her and her ex husband bought will work for our loan approval. We're most likely going FHA and from what I've heard, with an FHA, there is no point in putting down more than 3.5% unless we're going to put down 20%. We just don't have 20% to put down and I'd rather not kill the rest of our assets trying to lower the mortgage payment. I know we'll be paying PMI so I'm factoring that into our monthly payment. One thing that may be worth considering is that MIP (the FHA version of PMI) does get reduced at certain loan to value thresholds. If 5 percent down doesn't stretch you too much further than 3.5 percent, youd be paying less on your monthly payment. Especially considering after April 9th you are looking at a rise in your upfront MIP and your monthly MIP, it might be something to at least crunch.
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# ? Apr 1, 2012 21:51 |