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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? You drill wells well below the frost line and pump coolant through. Get deep enough and the ground is a pretty constant 55*F or so. It's also possible to run them horizontally in a trench if you have the space. Around here (Southeast Alaska) they're starting to run them where the groundwater is tidally flushed. You don't have to drill very deep at all (30' or less) and the water around the pipes means a very efficient heat transfer.
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Jun 30, 2012 07:21
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10-8 posted: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. I really cannot think of a reason why you cannot pay the fees up front. Even with a lot of state licensing rules (which is a tangential reason why you might not be able to do it) about high costs loans you should still be able to pay the fees up front.
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Jun 30, 2012 15:23
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I thought maybe this was the place to ask this question: How the gently caress do I wade through all the bullshit online and find a decent place to rent? I live in the East Bay in California and we are looking to move out of our current apartment because our lease is up and the property managers are douche bags. So we're back in the market after being out for 5 years and everything online is just so... corporaty and inflated. Should I contact a Realtor for the area we are looking and let them know we are interested in a rental in our price range? Or what? Rent.com and all other websites are awful. Thoughts? Ideas? Insight? Thanks!
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Jun 30, 2012 16:17
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Advent Horizon posted:You drill wells well below the frost line and pump coolant through. Get deep enough and the ground is a pretty constant 55*F or so. It's also possible to run them horizontally in a trench if you have the space. I am pretty sure the Canadian guy is talking about regular air exchange heat pumps, but these are much better.
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Jun 30, 2012 16:26
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10-8 posted: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. I would stop messing around with a for profit bank and go find an independent mortgage broker who will work to get you the lowest rate possible. If you're willing to pay 2 points up front there is no reason you shouldn't be walking away with sub 4%
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Jun 30, 2012 18:08
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skipdogg posted:I would stop messing around with a for profit bank and go find an independent mortgage broker who will work to get you the lowest rate possible. If you're willing to pay 2 points up front there is no reason you shouldn't be walking away with sub 4% There is nothing wrong with for profit banks, just Chase is not a company you should do business with. Credit unions and small local banks can be pretty awesome.
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Jul 1, 2012 15:45
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We'd love to ditch Chase but we've had problems finding another bank to do a HARP refinance because (1) the underwriters are calling it an investment property now since it's been rented for the last year, and a lot of lenders have added an overlay precluding investment property refinances, and (2) it's a Freddie Mac loan with PMI, and apparently there's a lot of logistical problems right now getting the PMI transferred to the new loan. If we had a Fannie Mae loan, we'd have no problems. Actually, one other bank did tell us they'd do a HARP refinance: at 5% for a 15-year fixed. This is with a 800+ FICO and 105% LTV. It's ridiculous. We're considering skipping HARP, just dumping cash into principal over the next year, and then doing a traditional refi once we get the LTV down to 80%.
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Jul 1, 2012 17:41
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Chiken n' Waffles posted:Rent.com and all other websites are awful. Thoughts? Ideas? Insight?
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Jul 1, 2012 18:00
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In looking for a house, I came across a short sale in Massachusetts for 76k. It says it needs a lot of tlc, so I have a few questions about that. How much would it cost to add a room? It's a ranch style house so we would be building it into the backyard and we want a second bathroom. If I were to add a level, or knock the entire thing down, would that be a lot more?
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Jul 1, 2012 20:31
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Finally have enough equity to refinance, woot. 15 years, 2.875%.
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Jul 1, 2012 22:45
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moana posted:Is craigslist no good in the East Bay? I've always always found my apartments through CL.
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Jul 1, 2012 23:25
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10-8 posted:We'd love to ditch Chase but we've had problems finding another bank to do a HARP refinance because (1) the underwriters are calling it an investment property now since it's been rented for the last year, and a lot of lenders have added an overlay precluding investment property refinances, and (2) it's a Freddie Mac loan with PMI, and apparently there's a lot of logistical problems right now getting the PMI transferred to the new loan. If we had a Fannie Mae loan, we'd have no problems. One thing you might do in your case is just check who is your PMI provider right now, because you are right about it being an issue with the PMI getting transferred over. Find out who they will transfer over to you and then just focus on those companies. It is going to be a little more difficult considering its an investment, but thats life.
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Jul 2, 2012 00:02
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Chiken n' Waffles posted:Should I contact a Realtor for the area we are looking and let them know we are interested in a rental in our price range? Or what? Rent.com and all other websites are awful. Thoughts? Ideas? Insight? Ever try padmapper.com ? Depending on what area you're from it might be helpful. It combs the postings from some other classifieds sites and puts them on a map for you. It doesn't work all the time though.
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Jul 2, 2012 00:05
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How much stronger is an offer without the "must sell our current house" contingency? Is not having that contingency generally seen as a "nice to have" on top of the offer, or is having that contingency in place seen as unattractive? I assume that it depends on the seller's situation, competition for the house, etc. If we have already done the legwork of finding the house, getting our preapproval, and are reasonably confident we can navigate the process (been through it once before), is it worth considering not using a buyer's agent? Let's say the buyer's agent commission would be 2.5%... I'm considering asking the seller's agent if they would consider refunding 2% to the seller if we don't bring a buyer's agent, netting them another 0.5% and us 2%. Is this common, and if so, I assume it's information that's withheld from the seller himself? I would need this in writing, so I assume that if the seller's agent is willing to do this, they would be willing to write this down. Based on my perception of the demand for the house that we're looking at, I'm considering putting in an offer that is discounted X% from the listing price, with a 2% refund to the seller. Making the house a X% discount from my standpoint and a (X-2)% discount from the seller's standpoint. Based on the sale-to-list ratios in the town, I'm considering starting with X as 4 or 5%. The offer would be contingent upon selling our current house, an inspection, and financing (with an attached preapproval letter). I forget, do I attach earnest money to the inital offer or is this put up at P&S signing? I seem to remember something like $1,000 with the offer and 5% of purchase price at P&S. Maybe I'm just imagining the money that went in with the initial offer... Lastly, what is the timeframe like to sell a current house if we make the offer first? This is Massachusetts, if that's required information. Just wondering if we will have literally 2 weeks to sell, or how it would work. I'm sure the RE agent we're getting will answer this, but I wanted someone else's perspective, especially people that have been through it (trying to sell a house under pressure). uwaeve fucked around with this message at 13:47 on Jul 2, 2012 |
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Jul 2, 2012 13:45
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Personally I would not take an offer very seriously if it has a disclaimer at the the top like that. I mean if I like the offer I would accept it but make the buyer aware that I will sell the house immediately to the first buyer that ponies up actual money, including lower offers.
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Jul 2, 2012 13:50
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Citycop posted:Personally I would not take an offer very seriously if it has a disclaimer at the the top like that. I mean if I like the offer I would accept it but make the buyer aware that I will sell the house immediately to the first buyer that ponies up actual money, including lower offers. Yeah you can't really do that. That is not accepting the offer. You either accept the terms or you don't accept the offer. An offer is a contract. Normally there is a time limit and a fee for taking the house off the market for the specified time or the offer will just be ignored. As a seller I would want to know if the house being sold is offered at a reasonable price or not before accepting the offer.
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Jul 2, 2012 15:12
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uwaeve posted:How much stronger is an offer without the "must sell our current house" contingency? Is not having that contingency generally seen as a "nice to have" on top of the offer, or is having that contingency in place seen as unattractive? I assume that it depends on the seller's situation, competition for the house, etc. I can't tell you anything about the other stuff you were saying, but I can give you my experience on the offer with contingency. Basically I'm not sure if it makes it more unattractive but it means you might not get the house (I am in Indiana for reference). I put an offer on a house that already had an accepted contingent upon selling house offer on it. They had to notify the seller and the other offerers of my offer within 24 hours, and they had 72 hours (I think, my memory of the time lengths are not exact) to decide whether or not to exercise the contingency. Basically they could have said "Screw selling our house, we will buy this one now regardless" and I would have been poo poo out of luck even if I'd offered more. The sellers wouldn't have been able to do anything. However, the offerers were unable or unwilling to exercise it and thus my offer was now on the table, and was quickly accepted. About 4 days after this happened, the original offerers sold their house, and I found out that they were offering more money than I was as well. However, there was nothing they could do, as my offer had already been accepted and was moving forward even though we hadn't closed.
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Jul 2, 2012 16:12
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Elephanthead posted:Yeah you can't really do that. That is not accepting the offer. You either accept the terms or you don't accept the offer. An offer is a contract. Normally there is a time limit and a fee for taking the house off the market for the specified time or the offer will just be ignored. As a seller I would want to know if the house being sold is offered at a reasonable price or not before accepting the offer. Maybey I'm just too simple and I'm admittedly ignorant about these things but I don't understand what the point of accepting this offer would be then. I wouldn't take my house off the market for someone that might want to buy it. I would just leave it on the market and keep it available for other offers. If the buyer sells his old house he could make me an offer the same day and I would be happy to take it. I guess the only foreseeable benefit for the seller is some sort of hope that you have a buyer semi-locked in, but I think that may be a false premise. My last realtor told me that those offers have so many ways for a seller to get out of them that they are not something you want to hang your hat on. They could just order another inspection or say that something came up with the condition of the house that is out of agreement.
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Jul 2, 2012 16:50
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Because you know you have a buyer? For a hot property that's going to have a lot of offers and sell quickly, it doesn't make sense, but if you've had a house on the market for a year or so, especially if no one's living in it, why not accept it? If you get another offer then they have to put up or shut up immediately, and if you don't then you'll still eventually sell it when the buyer's house gets sold. I mean obviously you can get screwed by the buyers backing out in some way, but you don't have to take the house off of the market on a contingent offer so you can still be seeking other buyers while they have their offer on it.
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Jul 2, 2012 16:58
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I met with a loan officer today about a interim construction loan. He said it would be 5.5% paid out every 90 days on what you have drawn during that period. During the last period that interest would be rolled into the mortgage, which they do not do in house. I haven't found any banks in town yet that will do the construction loan and the mortgage. Basically I would owe these guys 5.5% at 90 days and this would be due, in cash. That does not seem normal. Everything I have heard or read worked out to no payments until the house is built. Is this right? or should I run away.
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Jul 3, 2012 20:31
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I am not saying it is a good idea to accept contingent offers, I am just saying what you propose is not accepting the offer. Why are you building in a market full of inventory? You could probably do better with a pre owned home combined with a renovation.
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Jul 3, 2012 22:04
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Help my dad wants to buy another 50k dollar house in a poor neighborhood because prices are so cheap and I am trying to get him to consider other options (or put it in a rainy day fund as hes using funds that aren't his own). Help me think of alternatives that he could put that 50k dollars into instead that would be similar investments risk wise. He already is heavily invested into cheapo houses like the one hes going to buy another of. Owns 5 or 6. He hates stocks and thinks a 50k dollar house is worth buying just for the ROI on rent.
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Jul 4, 2012 00:13
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Kneel Before Zog posted:Help my dad wants to buy another 50k dollar house in a poor neighborhood because prices are so cheap and I am trying to get him to consider other options (or put it in a rainy day fund as hes using funds that aren't his own). Help me think of alternatives that he could put that 50k dollars into instead that would be similar investments risk wise. He already is heavily invested into cheapo houses like the one hes going to buy another of. Owns 5 or 6. He hates stocks and thinks a 50k dollar house is worth buying just for the ROI on rent. If he wants to be a landlord, lovely properties in lovely neighborhoods are known to have the highest cash flow for small time investors. If he already owns 5 or 6, I assume he already understands the clientele he will be dealing with, so, if he doesn't mind that, his preferred investment is perfectly legitimate and will be a money maker. Leveraging real estate right now is hard to argue against given historical price levels and interest rates. What exactly do you know about the matter? greasyhands fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Jul 4, 2012 |
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Jul 4, 2012 03:05
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So it turns out that VA Loans for co-ops won't be an option mostly because the profit isn't there for lenders. So I've gotten some pre-approvals for conventional loans with 15%. Seeing as I don't want to pay PMI for the full term, but can't cant afford 20% can I pay more per month and eventually eliminate the PMI? I'm being forced to move so waiting and saving isn't so much an option.
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Jul 4, 2012 03:42
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Usually with a conventional loan you can pay more every month an reach 20 percent equity and have your PMI fall off sooner rather than later yes. You would want to make sure you carefully read your initial disclosures from your lender though, as if you have a loan with prepayment penalties, this may not be possible. If you went FHA instead of conventional you would have to carry the PMI for at least 5 years however, so that is a difference you would want to keep in mind as you are looking at getting pre-approvals.
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Jul 4, 2012 18:10
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Well, locked in 2.875% for 15 on a refinance. Let's hope the appraisal comes in OK (there have been three sales of identical floor plans in my building at a higher price than I need over the last three months). Feels good to get to 80% LTV, given that I bought with like zero down just before the peak of the market.
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Jul 5, 2012 15:43
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gtkor posted:Usually with a conventional loan you can pay more every month an reach 20 percent equity and have your PMI fall off sooner rather than later yes. This is true, look up the Homeowners Protection Act of 1998. I just invoked this to get my PMI dropped from my mortgage, saving me around $25/month. Yay!
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Jul 5, 2012 17:52
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Looks like we will be signing a contract with a builder on Monday. From starting to look for a builder and surveying the land it has taken us two months to get The floorplan right and make up our mind on who to go with. I negotiated the build price down to $88 per sqft. The construction loan is 85% of the apprasial value and the rate is 5.25% calculated on what you have drawn each 90 days. The living space if the house is about 2260 sqft. The builder said he was willing to take out an interium loan to meet the missing %15 so we will not be required to bring much more than closing costs to the table. Pretty excited to get started even though I know it will take over a month before any observable physical labor is taking place.
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Jul 6, 2012 01:30
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gvibes posted:Well, locked in 2.875% for 15 on a refinance. Let's hope the appraisal comes in OK (there have been three sales of identical floor plans in my building at a higher price than I need over the last three months). This is just a ridiculous rate. I was super excited to get 3.375 on my 15 year.
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Jul 6, 2012 14:47
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As you should have been. He didnt show you a GFE, you dont know what he locked into. A 3.375 is still a historically strong rate.
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Jul 7, 2012 05:58
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gtkor posted:As you should have been. He didnt show you a GFE, you dont know what he locked into. A 3.375 is still a historically strong rate.
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Jul 9, 2012 22:06
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Just got my construction contract signed and the bank is ordering the appraisal. Woot! I gave the builder a $2k advance to put in the construction account to get started with the boring site prep stuff right away. I love my floorplan and can't wait to see what my heating / cooling bills will be with the foam insulation top and bottom and heat pump. Also going to have a nice view of a huge swatch of Texas off my back porch.  2230 sqft x $88/sqft = $196240 Never thought I would be spending that much on a house :\, but on the flip side rates are insane right now so that's pretty awesome. Fingers crossed but I'm betting they stay low through the election season so I can lock in asap. I can't imagine they would screw with the rates too much when people are ready to go to the polls.... Citycop fucked around with this message at 01:25 on Jul 10, 2012 |
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Jul 10, 2012 01:22
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gvibes posted:Yeah, I have no idea what this stuff is. Origination fee is 597, no points. It doesn't seem too bad. If your payoff and your new loan amount are only 597 dollars apart, it would be a uniquely good rate, no matter what your profile is. You could theoretically be streamlining, but even then, id be very surprised to see total settlement charges at 597. It sounds like a great loan either way though, so congrats!
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Jul 10, 2012 02:35
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Citycop posted:
This is just based on our first house having a similar floor plan, but can you reverse the door on your master? If you leave it partially open, anyone walking in from the front door can look into your master, whereas if you reversed it, they only see the door. e: it seems piddly, but you will care when you haven't bothered to clean up your dirty clothes or make your bed or whatever, you'll appreciate that they can't see in! let it mellow fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Jul 10, 2012 |
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Jul 10, 2012 02:42
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Citycop... will the house have an attached garage? The floorplan is nice, but it flows strangely especially if your main point of entry will be through the laundry room/mudroom.
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Jul 10, 2012 04:27
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And you have to walk through the master bathroom to get to the closet? I hope someone isn't pinching a loaf when you want to get dressed in the morning (or that they mind you walking through while they pinch said loaf).
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Jul 10, 2012 04:39
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CanadianSuperKing posted:And you have to walk through the master bathroom to get to the closet? I hope someone isn't pinching a loaf when you want to get dressed in the morning (or that they mind you walking through while they pinch said loaf). Everybody is a hater on floor plans. I've realized that there is no perfect house. If you get everything you want then it gets too hard to clean/maintain. As long as you have a good architect handle it, they'll take care of the stupid things you won't think of yourself.
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Jul 10, 2012 04:41
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Another nitpick, why not reverse the main door and segment the master bedroom closet so that a part of it can be used as a coat closet? Sure you'll give up closet space, but it would be really handy, especially if you entertain often.
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Jul 10, 2012 05:14
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MrEnigma posted:the stool has its own door. I was thinking about commenting when I originally saw the plans, but then I stopped myself because I realized that you could post 100 floor plans and you would get 500 opinions about them with nobody agreeing on anything, and really if it's the house that you're buying and you like it, then roll with it. One thing I do wish would happen is that more houses for sale would have the floor plans printed out at the open house. I would love to have floor plans available for any house I saw, it would help me evaluate it much better.
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Jul 10, 2012 11:28
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My wife and I are in contract to build with Dominion Homes in central Ohio...we're very excited about it. There aren't a lot of builders in our area, its either one of the small custom builders, usually built out in the country, Dominion Homes, Rockford Homes or Maronda Homes. There aren't very many 4 bedrooms in our area for sale, usually they are either really small or really expensive, building new was the way to go. We'll be moving in late March/April from our 2 bedroom 1 bath house with no garage and no basement to the new place, which is almost 2200 sqft, 2.5 baths, 2 car garage, basement and on a lot that is over 3x larger than our current one. We have three kids and needless to say are very happy to have the space and the bathrooms. Floorplan is below, first floor on left, 2nd on right...the two floors are not to scale. There are a couple of arches on the first floor, which I love and external corners are rounded, which I hope are durable. Kateland is the sitting room/office where no children will be permitted 
ntd fucked around with this message at 14:13 on Jul 10, 2012 |
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Jul 10, 2012 14:11
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