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drat Bananas posted:He's in Spring, and looking in Southlake, to be more specific. It'll depend on the neighbourhood and price point. The far out 'burbs aren't hot real estate markets, but correctly priced houses should move in typical 3-6 month time frames. One advantage spring has is that Exxon will be relocating most of their offices to the nearby Woodlands in a year or two, but I don't know that it's imminent enough to help move real estate this summer. The bigger E/N point is that you need to have a conversation with your soon-to-be-brother-in-law, letting him know it's time for him to make alternate lodging arrangements and that doesn't need to be contingent on selling the house in spring. Your boyfriend should be the one to break the news, since it's his relative.
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Jun 25, 2012 18:21
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Can anyone recommend a good mortgage broker to work with in Wisconsin? Also, we have found a house we like and can comfortably afford, gotten the disclosure from the seller, and are ready to make an offer. Do we get approved for the financing first, or get an accepted offer first? I know my realtor will help me with this, I just am asking here before I ask her.
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Jun 25, 2012 23:21
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Seller's attorney says they have to delay the closing 5-7 days for "unforeseen reasons". gently caress them and gently caress their house. She can rot in debtor's prison.
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Jun 26, 2012 01:04
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sheri posted:Can anyone recommend a good mortgage broker to work with in Wisconsin? You can put it an offer that hinges on financing, but having a pre-approval letter lets the seller know you are serious. It's good to have all your ducks in a row to begin with. Buying a house is annoying enough and full of surprises.
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Jun 26, 2012 03:39
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Errant Gin Monks posted:You can put it an offer that hinges on financing, but having a pre-approval letter lets the seller know you are serious. It's good to have all your ducks in a row to begin with. Buying a house is annoying enough and full of surprises. We didn't bother getting pre-approved, as we have way more than 20% down to put if needed, gross more in a year then when the house is listed at, and have excellent credit and very very little debt (that is all at 0% interest or we would have paid it off already). I suppose I could go to some random bank and get pre-approved, but it seemed pointless to do since random pre-approval bank likely wouldn't be the one we got financing from unless they had the best rates/closing costs.
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Jun 26, 2012 04:19
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Well in that case if you trust your realtor ask them to recommend you a mortgage broker. They know who is good and who isn't.
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Jun 26, 2012 07:08
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Is there something inherently dangerous with buying a new home, specifically M/I Homes. Should I be dropping by the home site and taking pictures once a week? I haven't signed anything yet, but after trying to find an existing home that meets our family's demands we decided to look into just building one. We both have good credit and more than enough to cover 20% down, probably get a mortgage from the local credit union. I was just curious what are the common risks or ways I can protect myself if I decide on a new home instead of a existing one, I know a builder is only as good as their sub-contractors.
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Jun 26, 2012 14:46
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Been moving for the past week or so. We packed up the old apartment over the course of a few late nights, got our new keys on Friday, immediately had a handyman come in to do a few things in the bathroom while I cleaned and repainted the balcony. The movers came on Saturday morning and I spent most of Sunday putting ikea furniture together. Our beautiful new condo still looks like an episode of Hoarders. I'm sore and tired and have eaten all of my meals for the past week using a home depot moving box as a table. At least I won't have to shower at the gym anymore starting tomorrow. Do never buy.
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Jun 26, 2012 17:52
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Question.. We're not looking to get preapproved until late August/early September, but one of our friends is telling us just to do it now anyways because it "can't hurt" even though we don't have what we're looking for a downpayment as of yet. I mean we're not very far away from the Down Payment, but is there any point in doing it beforehand? Will it cause a problem?
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Jun 26, 2012 18:35
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Preapprovals only last for something like 60 days, so get it when you need it and not a long time before.
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Jun 26, 2012 18:46
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You usually need a pre-approval letter when you submit an offer. Getting one before that, I suppose it "can't hurt" to know what your actual mortgage payments might look like in the price range you're shopping.
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Jun 26, 2012 19:22
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No point in getting pre approved this early, but it might be a good idea to check your credit reports for any incorrect information if you haven't recently. The last thing you want to find out is something wrong is on there when you have 30 days to close on a house.
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Jun 26, 2012 19:23
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skipdogg posted:No point in getting pre approved this early, but it might be a good idea to check your credit reports for any incorrect information if you haven't recently. The last thing you want to find out is something wrong is on there when you have 30 days to close on a house. I do this a lot because of identity theft issues in the past. We're both hovering around 810.
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Jun 26, 2012 19:25
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Pillowpants posted:I do this a lot because of identity theft issues in the past. We're both hovering around 810. Good Lord... can I borrow some of that credit score?
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Jun 26, 2012 19:33
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Pillowpants posted:Question.. Getting pre-approved resulted in a hard pull of my credit that brought it down a couple of points. Probably not an awful idea if you're waiting and it won't be a huge drawdown, but it may be there. Pre approval would be good to let you know if you're at least in the ballpark of where you want to be (would recommend less than preapproval amount...I went with about 70% of that value).
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Jun 26, 2012 23:23
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I am waiting on pins and needles over here. Just spoke to my agent. Our negotiation is just 2% apart. Can't wait to sign my life away for the fist time. Unless your pre approval was different than mine they seem to barely be worth the paper they are printed on. We will close for almost 50% of the pre approval amount.
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Jun 27, 2012 00:34
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So, we finally found a house we like, it has been on the market for almost 6 months (which is a pretty long time here), we make plans to write an offer today, and when we arrive after work our agent informs us that another offer was written today as well (but not yet presented to the seller). Both offers will be presented tomorrow. Hopefully ours is the best. Just our luck!
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Jun 27, 2012 01:59
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Dead Pressed posted:Getting pre-approved resulted in a hard pull of my credit that brought it down a couple of points. Probably not an awful idea if you're waiting and it won't be a huge drawdown, but it may be there. Pre approval would be good to let you know if you're at least in the ballpark of where you want to be (would recommend less than preapproval amount...I went with about 70% of that value). So not having the down payment amount I expect to have in 2 months doesn't matter?
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Jun 27, 2012 02:48
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Pillowpants posted:So not having the down payment amount I expect to have in 2 months doesn't matter? It could be informative to know that you're actually going to get it for planning purposes, but it will be a waste as they are generally only good for 60 days. Also, I just heard back! Offer Accepted! Can't wait to be bitching about the pain of home ownership. Really can't wait to be paying $1000 less a month than my current situation.
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Jun 27, 2012 03:14
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KennyG posted:It could be informative to know that you're actually going to get it for planning purposes, but it will be a waste as they are generally only good for 60 days. Congrats! We should be closing close to the same time. Good luck with everything.
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Jun 27, 2012 05:17
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KennyG posted:Unless your pre approval was different than mine they seem to barely be worth the paper they are printed on. We will close for almost 50% of the pre approval amount. We had our guy generate pre-approval letters for a little more than the offer each time, it seems beneficial to have everyone involved thinking you're at your limit or close to it. No idea what our actual limit would have been, as that always seems ridiculously high anyway.
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Jun 27, 2012 12:40
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KennyG posted:It could be informative to know that you're actually going to get it for planning purposes, but it will be a waste as they are generally only good for 60 days. So if they're only good for 60 days and we're not actually going to be ready for about 60 days, it might be a good idea for planning purposes? Do they not look at your savings to calculate what you can afford? I ask because we're about $1600 from where I want to be downpayment wise and I'm just trying to be cautious before I do this.
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Jun 27, 2012 14:11
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I called up a lender that my brother used and talked to him for about 10 mins. He asked a bunch of questions like combined gross income, total credit card debt, car notes, student loans, etc and gave us a general window what we would be pre-approved for so we had an idea what we could shop for. Then, before we made an offer we had our lender send over the pre-approval letter for a little more than we were offering.
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Jun 27, 2012 15:24
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sanchez posted:We had our guy generate pre-approval letters for a little more than the offer each time, it seems beneficial to have everyone involved thinking you're at your limit or close to it. No idea what our actual limit would have been, as that always seems ridiculously high anyway. I've had the same thoughts regarding preapproval. Is it the concensus here that bringing a vastly overinflated preapproval can weaken a negotiating position? If I'm trying to haggle for a thousand dollars around $300k and have a preapproval for $600k, and the other party has knowledge of this, it seems like a dumb idea to have not shown a lower preapproval.
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Jun 27, 2012 15:27
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Koirhor posted:Is there something inherently dangerous with buying a new home, specifically M/I Homes. Should I be dropping by the home site and taking pictures once a week? I haven't signed anything yet, but after trying to find an existing home that meets our family's demands we decided to look into just building one. We both have good credit and more than enough to cover 20% down, probably get a mortgage from the local credit union. I have a home under construction with M/I and they have a pretty good reputation in my area (Raleigh/Durham) but you're right about the builder and what subcontractors he picks. The primary risk with building in a non-established neighborhood is not knowing what will come in around you. Check with your city/town about zoning in the areas around the neighborhood and also take a look at the official plans to see how drainage/greenspace/etc will turn out. Spend the extra money and get a post-framing inspection from an inspector you trust in addition to the normal pre-closing inspection. You won't have a chance to inspect all the framing/electrical/plumbing in a completed structure. If you do decide to build, definitely take pictures and stop by to check things out on weekends. Take lots of pictures right before drywall goes in and save them. You don't want to find out that a plumbing/gas/electrical line is behind the spot where you want to add shelves by hitting it with a nail.
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Jun 27, 2012 15:47
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uwaeve posted:I've had the same thoughts regarding preapproval. Is it the concensus here that bringing a vastly overinflated preapproval can weaken a negotiating position? If I'm trying to haggle for a thousand dollars around $300k and have a preapproval for $600k, and the other party has knowledge of this, it seems like a dumb idea to have not shown a lower preapproval. I'm sure the seller knows that it's being generated for that as well. The thing I asked my realtor that doesn't make sense with this logic is that the seller should know you are putting something down. Even if they assume it's only 3% on $300k then they know you have room for $9k in your loan that you're not using. Psychologically it has to be better to show that you can afford $300k vs. $600k, but realistically on a few thousand dollars it shouldn't make any difference to a seller thinking about the info they have available.
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Jun 27, 2012 17:11
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Fleshpeg posted:If you do decide to build, definitely take pictures and stop by to check things out on weekends. Take lots of pictures right before drywall goes in and save them. You don't want to find out that a plumbing/gas/electrical line is behind the spot where you want to add shelves by hitting it with a nail. THIS! These pictures are actually a pretty good lifesaver. I'm really happy I took pictures of all the rooms before I put the drywall up because not only did the drywall guys gently caress up and cover a few outlets and electrical fixture boxes (wtf?) but it also came in really handy when we put in framing for supporting the corner of the kitchen countertop and couldn't find the studs with the stupid piece of crap stud finder. DO NEVER BUY stud finders. DO take pictures at the completion of every major step.
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Jun 27, 2012 17:17
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A point of cost savings has come up in the area of insulation. I am building in Texas and it is hot most of the year, winters are minimal. My cost savings is going to come mostly from keeping cold air inside. The house will be 4 sides stone with a 30year composite roof shingle. I am settled on a sealed foam attic but the difference in foam or blown cellulose in the walls is $1200. Looking at pictures of blown cellulose walls it seems to be far and above the old rolls of fiberglass and the coverage looks to be on par with the foam. Is the foam going to save me $1200 in energy costs over the next 10 to 30 years? I'm skeptical about that. Also my builder quoted a fourteen seer puron system with a $500 heat pump. Another builder told me that I needed a 16 seer and that I would not like the heat pump "because it runs all the time and you don't have good control of the temperature" The real goal here is to save money on electric bills. Doing my own research tells me that the heat pump is a good idea but I am admittedly ignorant of such things and at the mercy of biased reviews on the interwebs. Citycop fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Jun 29, 2012 |
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Jun 29, 2012 20:31
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What do you guys think of insulated concrete forms/logix blocks type products? You know, those big foam lego blocks you build your house out of a fill with concrete. All the manufacturer propaganda makes it out ot be the best thing ever and will pay for its self in 5-10 years based on energy savings. It also means instead of a wooden house you have a super tough concrete house. Worth it?
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Jun 29, 2012 20:53
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Where in Texas? Down here in San Antonio you want the heat pump option. It won't get cold enough to use the electric backup heat very often... the heat pump should be good to 20 degrees or so. I don't know how cold it gets up north in the Dallas area. Anywhere south of Austin is definite heat pump territory unless you have access to gas. A heat pump is just an A/C unit that runs backwards to heat the house instead of cooling it in the winter. When cooling it's the exact same as an air conditioner. I skipped the heat pump in my house and let me tell you electric heat can get really expensive. My first year in my house we never used it as my wife and I like it cold, but I have 2 little kids (2 and 6 mos) now that don't sleep well at night when its cold. December was actually higher for energy usage than September we had the heat on so much. 14 SEER is a good unit, but price out a 16 SEER unit or higher, it might not cost much more and be a good investment as far as electricity usage goes. I think top of the line systems are up to 22 or 23 SEER difference. You would have to do the math to see how much your annual savings would be and if the initial investment is worth it. As for the insulation debate, the foams are newer and supposedly better, but my step dad swears by blown in cellulose. With 4 sides brick I would expect much of a difference between foam and cellulose in the walls. Personally I keep my house pretty cold, so if I was building custom I would maximize all energy efficient options possible. Get picky about your windows too, and make sure that place is caulked up tight. You don't want your house too tight though. If you can get gas where your building look at a tankless water heater and high efficiency gas furance for when it gets cold. Citycop posted:Doing my own research tells me that the heat pump is a good idea but I am admittedly ignorant of such things and at the mercy of biased reviews on the interwebs. To address this a little bit more.. a heat pump is basically an air conditioner running in reverse. Instead of dumping heat outside the house, it's absorbing it from outside and then dumping the heat inside the house. The only problem with them is they only work when it isn't super cold outside which makes them perfect for warmer climates like Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, places like that where 'cold' is down in the 40's and 30's. Heat pumps are more efficient than normal electric heat. Electric heat uses electricity to heat up metal coils and then the air handler blows air over them heating the air. Think giant hair dryer for your house. Very inefficient. My electric heat uses 10,000 watts when its on. The heat pump runs the a/c system in reverse which is more efficient than using 10kW to heat metal up like a toaster. You're just running the compressor and relying on phase change of the refrigerant to handle the heating. skipdogg fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Jun 29, 2012 |
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Jun 29, 2012 20:59
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Ton of buildings getting heat pumps here in Canada, how do they work in winter then?? Are they pumping heat from some secret geothermal cave or something?
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Jun 29, 2012 21:12
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Baronjutter posted:Ton of buildings getting heat pumps here in Canada, how do they work in winter then?? Are they pumping heat from some secret geothermal cave or something? Below a certain point they switch over to a heating element (in essence operating as standard electric heat).
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Jun 29, 2012 21:18
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So why the gently caress they building them here if they'll be running off electric anyways? they always yell about the HEAT PUMPPPPP!!!! as a GREEN FEATURE in every new building.
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Jun 29, 2012 21:19
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Baronjutter posted:So why the gently caress they building them here if they'll be running off electric anyways? they always yell about the HEAT PUMPPPPP!!!! as a GREEN FEATURE in every new building. skipdogg posted:Heat pumps are more efficient than normal electric heat.
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Jun 29, 2012 21:24
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Say you need heat 6 months out of the year, well a good majority of that need will probably occur when the heat pump will be more efficient than electric. Below 20 degrees or so you need to start supplementing with electric, so if you can go heat pump only for 4 months you're still saving energy. Down here in South Texas we only need heat maybe 3 1/2 months a year, maybe 4... and it hardly ever gets below 20 degrees so heat pumps work great down here.
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Jun 29, 2012 21:28
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Baronjutter posted:So why the gently caress they building them here if they'll be running off electric anyways? they always yell about the HEAT PUMPPPPP!!!! as a GREEN FEATURE in every new building. Truly green heating features would be building the house over said secret geothermal caves. It's just a buzzword, for the most part.
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Jun 29, 2012 21:30
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Baronjutter posted:What do you guys think of insulated concrete forms/logix blocks type products? You know, those big foam lego blocks you build your house out of a fill with concrete. All the manufacturer propaganda makes it out ot be the best thing ever and will pay for its self in 5-10 years based on energy savings. It also means instead of a wooden house you have a super tough concrete house. Worth it? My mom used this only on the foundation of her house. One of the downsides is you don't really have studs in the wall to do stuff like hang a picture or attach a shelf, or something (I think). So she went with that for the foundation/basement, I guess because that was the most bang for the buck in cost vs insulation savings, but did traditional stick built for the main floor.
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Jun 29, 2012 22:50
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Turns out the bank that pre-approved me can't lend for co-op purchases. Time to make some phone calls on monday to lenders. Edit: I seem to be getting conflicting information from multiple places. Is it even possible to purchase a co-op with a VA loan? VA benefits say yes, but two banks have no said, No. Is this some extra hoop that banks these days aren't willing to jump through? Kallikrates fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Jun 30, 2012 |
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Jun 29, 2012 23:58
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Anyone with experience doing Fannie or Freddie loans have a general idea how much the loan-level pricing adjustment (for Fannie) or the delivery fees (for Freddie) affect the interest rate if the fees aren't paid up front? HARP caps Freddie's delivery fees at 2% of loan value. For a $90,000 loan, that's only $1,800 to pay the fees up front. Yet Chase is telling me that (1) I can't pay the fees up front, and (2) the fees are causing my rate to go up from market rate (about 3.7%) to 4.75%. Something seems off here.
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Jun 30, 2012 06:04
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skipdogg posted:Where in Texas? Down here in San Antonio you want the heat pump option. It won't get cold enough to use the electric backup heat very often... Ok thanks for the insight. It rarely gets below 20 here. I think with the sealed foam attic and blown cellulose walls and a heat pump I'll be getting the best bank for the buck in the big 10 year picture.
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Jun 30, 2012 06:28
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