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Holy poo poo that's a nice looking house, I can definitely see how this will be a tough decision for you to make. If there were houses like that in my neck of the woods at that price I'd fall in love too. That'd be like 2mil where we live...drat my wife and her family being from north jersey. We bought a 1200sqft ranch for 300k last year, house hunting for less than 400k was so depressing. In the end we went with the small starter and didn't over-extend ourselves, no regrets. fruition fucked around with this message at 07:01 on Jan 1, 2015 |
# ? Jan 1, 2015 06:57 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 15:01 |
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sadus posted:What would be more annoying: buying a house out of state, or selling a house out of state? Should both be avoided if possible? My guess is that you will need to rent something while you hunt for a house. I've been looking at houses around Denver for the last year or so. The market is absolutely insane. Anything decent doesn't last more than 3 days, and usually goes for 10-15k above asking. Contingencies are a thing of the past. There are a lot of well-qualified buyers, so I hope you are putting 20% down to make your offers competitive. I've lost 3 offers to cash buyers in the last 4 months. Most of the excess inventory that plot is showing is likely overpriced run-down junk that nobody wants, not homes that you would consider living in.
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# ? Jan 1, 2015 18:13 |
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anne frank fanfic posted:Youve been burned twice trying to find a steal in california. How about you stop trying to find cheap land in san francisco you retard nebby fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Jan 1, 2015 |
# ? Jan 1, 2015 21:15 |
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fruition posted:We bought a 1200sqft ranch for 300k last year, house hunting for less than 400k was so depressing. In the end we went with the small starter and didn't over-extend ourselves, no regrets. It seems like there's a lot of demand for rentals around here, so we'd probably be able to turn around and rent it out if we moved into a bigger place eventually. Or who knows, maybe I'll like living in a loving hobbit house bahahaha.
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# ? Jan 1, 2015 23:55 |
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swenblack posted:"Always turn down owner's title insurance." At least that's what my dad (a retired real estate attorney) told me. He had never heard of a successful claim against it in his entire career. That, coupled with the depth that most lenders go in their title searches, means that the likelihood of an undiscovered title defect is spectacularly low. And if they discover anything, they'll put in a contingency that you fix it or they won't loan you the money to buy the home. Out of curiosity, how much was your title insurance premium? Really? Huh. My experience was exactly the opposite. Premium was 378 rolled into my closing costs. I actually had no trouble whatsoever making a claim. They asked for a copy of my policy, hud1, and the notice. I emailed it to them and they called the attorney listed on the lien notice and took care of it in a day.
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# ? Jan 3, 2015 00:32 |
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Well, it's finally happening. The wife and I are finally at a point where we're starting to get more serious about buying a house. Already having conversations with a realtor and a lender for pre-qual stuff. I've been following this thread for so long, read all the horror stories and am still willfully ignoring "Do. Never. Buy." This will all go smoothly, I won't run into any issues with loan processing, offers, counteroffers, inspections, financial dickery, or any issue at all? Right?
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# ? Jan 3, 2015 02:09 |
Nohearum posted:My guess is that you will need to rent something while you hunt for a house. I've been looking at houses around Denver for the last year or so. The market is absolutely insane. Anything decent doesn't last more than 3 days, and usually goes for 10-15k above asking. Contingencies are a thing of the past. There are a lot of well-qualified buyers, so I hope you are putting 20% down to make your offers competitive. I've lost 3 offers to cash buyers in the last 4 months. Most of the excess inventory that plot is showing is likely overpriced run-down junk that nobody wants, not homes that you would consider living in. Denver's always been a strange real estate area, only major city in the US that didn't suffer a year over year decline in the crash, but also price growth in the 90s and 00s was much slower than everywhere else. Now it's a full on crazy bubble of skyrocketing prices for junk in awful neighborhoods.
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# ? Jan 3, 2015 03:50 |
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Higgy posted:Well, it's finally happening. The wife and I are finally at a point where we're starting to get more serious about buying a house. Already having conversations with a realtor and a lender for pre-qual stuff. I've been following this thread for so long, read all the horror stories and am still willfully ignoring "Do. Never. Buy." Whether it's a good decision or bad decision, rest assured that millions of other people are doing the exact same thing with you.
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# ? Jan 3, 2015 04:45 |
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Pryor on Fire posted:Denver's always been a strange real estate area, only major city in the US that didn't suffer a year over year decline in the crash, but also price growth in the 90s and 00s was much slower than everywhere else. Now it's a full on crazy bubble of skyrocketing prices for junk in awful neighborhoods. Damned high-income potheads.
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# ? Jan 3, 2015 04:50 |
Yeah it's great every time mentioning Colorado anywhere anytime to anyone the reaction is always LOL MARIJUANA AM I RITE that sure does never get old let me tell you what.
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# ? Jan 3, 2015 05:05 |
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Pryor on Fire posted:Yeah it's great every time mentioning Colorado anywhere anytime to anyone the reaction is always LOL MARIJUANA AM I RITE that sure does never get old let me tell you what. Maybe you should find something to help you mellow out, like... oh, I don't know... lifting weights?
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# ? Jan 3, 2015 05:09 |
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Pryor on Fire posted:Yeah it's great every time mentioning Colorado anywhere anytime to anyone the reaction is always LOL MARIJUANA AM I RITE that sure does never get old let me tell you what. It'll be legal everywhere soon enough, tough it out.
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# ? Jan 3, 2015 08:20 |
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Warpaint posted:Really? Huh. My experience was exactly the opposite. Premium was 378 rolled into my closing costs. I actually had no trouble whatsoever making a claim. They asked for a copy of my policy, hud1, and the notice. I emailed it to them and they called the attorney listed on the lien notice and took care of it in a day.
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# ? Jan 3, 2015 13:44 |
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I've got a relatively complex situation that I'm trying to figure out how to best handle. Extremely short version: I want to determine if, and how, I should buy the house that I'm renting from my in-laws. Longer version: My wife and I have been renting this house from her parents for a few years now (it also happens to be the house that my wife grew up in). It's in a very nice neighborhood with a great location, but it's an old house and needs a lot of work. Built in the early 1900s and has had a number of piecemeal additions and improvements, but no thorough renovations as far as I can tell. A little bit over a year ago, her parents told us that they were thinking about selling the house, in part so that they could get some cash out of it. They asked us to help get the house ready, and told us that when we were ready to buy at some point in the future that they would help us financially with the proceeds. We were on board with this, and spent a good bit of time over the past year doing work on the house where we had the time, mostly landscaping and deep-cleaning. They didn't really do much over the course of the year to move towards selling, which led us to believe that they weren't that serious about it. We talked and did some thinking and some research, and realized that there were a lot of reasons why it might make sense to just buy the house from them if a workable arrangement could be made. Specifically:
Everything that follows is just my current thinking that I'm trying to refine; no definite plans. We don't currently have the cash for a down payment, but the idea would be to buy for a price that's comfortably above what they owe on it so that they get some liquidity out, but *well* (e.g. > 20%) below market value and something that we could safely afford the payments on. We buy from them for this price, but finance with a bank, perhaps with a "gift of equity" (as I understand it) to avoid PMI and deal with the lack of a cash down payment. We would possibly also add on extra to complete repairs (203k, HE loan, HELOC), or just handle that later. I'm planning to do a lot more research and talk with a number of people more knowledgeable than I am, but figured I'd throw this out here to get any additional input, as well as advice on perhaps who I should talk to that I might not have considered. I intend to do the following (not necessarily in this order, but would like to hear advice about what order to do any of this in):
I know this is all sort of a big jumble of thoughts; just hoping to get some additional input and maybe find some new resources to research. In addition to the above:
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# ? Jan 3, 2015 23:29 |
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Madbullogna posted:Just a random rant...... Update - My agent called me as I was driving to the bank to get a cashier's check on the way to the closing. She finally told me that the issue was apparently the buyer's lender. The lender had given the info to the title company, who in turn had finished the HUD1 paperwork and sent everything back for the 'rubber stamp' from the lender. They were trying to avoid any suprises in case the lender felt something should be different. In the end, they told me the amount I had to bring to the table, and said that if the amount was for less, they would cut me a check, and if it was more, they would accept a personal check for the difference. Once we got to the table though, the lender had finally returned with the a-ok for the HUD1. As much as it sucked paying to get out of a mortgage, it sure was nice this morning when I tried to log in to my BofA account, and got "Error, no valid accounts with that User Name to display" pop up on the screen. Screw you BofA, never again! Haha.
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# ? Jan 4, 2015 00:45 |
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You can purchase it with a gift of equity. The way it works is that you'll need a private appraisal to determine the fair market value and arrange the sale, then you finance the balance of the sale price and whatever your in-laws are willing to gift you. For the purposes of fannie mae conforming loan requirements gifts of equity can finance all of the down payment and transaction costs for most primary residences. The gift of equity is treated the same as any gift by the IRS and subject to either the single year gift exemption ($56,000 from one couple to another couple co-borrowing on a mortgage) or counted against the lifetime estate tax exemption ($10.5 million for a married couple). If your in-laws still have a mortgage on the property I don't believe they are allowed to sell with a gift of equity but it's possible they can work something out depending upon what assets they have in what vehicles. If the roof is obviously bad you're going to need to either fix it prior to sale or get a special renovation loan that allows you to pay for it. You can't get conventional financing if there are major structural problems and it will be a problem to insure until the roof is repaired.
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# ? Jan 4, 2015 02:02 |
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BEHOLD: MY CAPE posted:You can purchase it with a gift of equity. The way it works is that you'll need a private appraisal to determine the fair market value and arrange the sale, then you finance the balance of the sale price and whatever your in-laws are willing to gift you. For the purposes of fannie mae conforming loan requirements gifts of equity can finance all of the down payment and transaction costs for most primary residences. The gift of equity is treated the same as any gift by the IRS and subject to either the single year gift exemption ($56,000 from one couple to another couple co-borrowing on a mortgage) or counted against the lifetime estate tax exemption ($10.5 million for a married couple). BEHOLD: MY CAPE posted:If your in-laws still have a mortgage on the property I don't believe they are allowed to sell with a gift of equity but it's possible they can work something out depending upon what assets they have in what vehicles. BEHOLD: MY CAPE posted:If the roof is obviously bad you're going to need to either fix it prior to sale or get a special renovation loan that allows you to pay for it. You can't get conventional financing if there are major structural problems and it will be a problem to insure until the roof is repaired.
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# ? Jan 4, 2015 03:44 |
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swenblack posted:A 5 year old mechanics lien not coming up on a title search is pretty . I'd wager the probability of that happening and the party actually trying to collect in the future (without a lien on file with the county) is negligible. Usually ~50% of your owner's title insurance premium goes to the real estate agent and/or closing agent if you use the one they recommend. If you feel you need title insurance, at least get some independent quotes. It sounds like you didn't pay too much for it (my quote was $1550) and you obviously came out ahead, but other people should do more research on it. Well, yeah, but that's why you buy owner's insurance. Owner's insurance is cheap (as a fraction of the purchase price) because claims are rare, and claims are rare because usually the transfer of title goes without a hitch. But sometimes it doesn't, and if you don't want to be subject to that kind of small but potentially disastrous risk then you buy owner's insurance. You should also consider that for most of your father's career there wasn't a huge real estate boom followed by a huge real estate bust along with countless foreclosures, many of which were filed incompetently. We entered into a purchase contract on 2 different foreclosed homes that turned out to have cloudy title as a result of misfiled paperwork; this was turned up in the title search and brought up by the insurer, but small details like a filing date that is 30 days later than the court-mandated filing date or a missing attorney disclosure that no one's looking for could easily be missed. It's also not surprising that the housing boom, which was accompanied by the creation of a bunch of new construction companies, might have created more situations where an existing lien goes undiscovered. Most of these newer homes will be sold and owned without issue, but as a home purchaser there's always that chance that you'll be one of the people who gets hosed
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# ? Jan 4, 2015 04:59 |
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Hello, thread! I am in the suburbs southwest of Chicago (Naperville-ish area). I've lived in the same crappy apartment complex for 6 years, and I've worked for the same company for 8 years. I was promoted in 2013, and I feel quite secure in my current position (national company, and the office where I work is expanding its operations this month). My apartment leaks when it rains hard, and I get water on my bathroom floor when the neighbors upstairs take a bath (not when they shower). I had a previous apartment here that had roaches. All the sub $1000/month apartments in this area seem hosed like this, then there's a gap and you're looking at $1100 - $1300 for a 1 bedroom pseudo-luxury place. So I'm thinking about buying a condo/townhome. I have about $30,000 at my disposal for a down payment + closing costs (this will not wipe us out, as I am setting aside at least $10,000 for an emergency fund plus I have another $30,000 in a 401k that I could borrow from if there was a bad enough emergency.) Assuming a 20% down payment, I believe that puts my limit at $125,000 (20% down = $25,000, plus up to $5,000 for closing costs, am I right?). Assuming I pay 20% down on a place that costs anywhere from $110,000 to $125,000, plus an HOA under $200 (found some, don't really want to pay more than $200 for an HOA), plus ~$3000 annual property tax, how wrong am I to do this? I'm shooting to pay just under $1000/month before heat/gas/water/electricity. I'm making at least $44,000/year (bonuses and unused sick day payouts on top of that), and my wife is part-time, made $16,000 last year, but we can't really rely on her making a stable amount year-to-year, so on the affordability calculators I've been claiming $45,000 just to be safe. I've thought about buying a cheap house, but in this area, the houses in my price range are pretty hosed. I'm handy, but not to the level these houses would need, and I think hiring someone to fix some of the stuff I'm seeing wouldn't be feasible right now. I need to be able to live in the property I buy. I've thought about renting for a few more years and seeing how much more I could save, but I feel like the days of low interest rates and low property prices are coming to an end and if I don't buy in 2015, I may not be able to in the future. Also, I'm sick of the crappy apartments around here. How wrong am I? Or am I on the right track? Thank you.
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# ? Jan 4, 2015 05:02 |
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BEHOLD: MY CAPE posted:You can purchase it with a gift of equity. The way it works is that you'll need a private appraisal to determine the fair market value and arrange the sale, then you finance the balance of the sale price and whatever your in-laws are willing to gift you. For the purposes of fannie mae conforming loan requirements gifts of equity can finance all of the down payment and transaction costs for most primary residences.... If your in-laws still have a mortgage on the property I don't believe they are allowed to sell with a gift of equity but it's possible they can work something out depending upon what assets they have in what vehicles. As long as the loan is paid in full the lender on the current mortgage doesn't care how you sell the property, they only get involved in short sales.
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# ? Jan 4, 2015 08:07 |
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QuarkJets posted:Well, yeah, but that's why you buy owner's insurance. Owner's insurance is cheap (as a fraction of the purchase price) because claims are rare, and claims are rare because usually the transfer of title goes without a hitch. But sometimes it doesn't, and if you don't want to be subject to that kind of small but potentially disastrous risk then you buy owner's insurance.
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# ? Jan 4, 2015 16:42 |
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In Oregon the seller pays for the buyer's title policy as part of closing costs, but personally I like the peace of mind that I get from it. Odds are slim that there will be an unrecorded lien but the consequences can be awful if it is of any size. Plus with how many releases I have run across that were filed at the wrong county I can certainly imagine a situation where you could have a heloc or something that wasn't uncovered in the title search because it was filed wrong. I don't know how the courts would handle that but I imagine it would be a pain in the rear end to deal with.
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# ? Jan 4, 2015 17:28 |
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Edit: I see that you're talking about an owner's policy, I definitely recommend that as well. blarzgh fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Jan 4, 2015 |
# ? Jan 4, 2015 18:58 |
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QuarkJets posted:Well, yeah, but that's why you buy owner's insurance. Owner's insurance is cheap (as a fraction of the purchase price) because claims are rare, and claims are rare because usually the transfer of title goes without a hitch. But sometimes it doesn't, and if you don't want to be subject to that kind of small but potentially disastrous risk then you buy owner's insurance.
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# ? Jan 4, 2015 20:20 |
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therobit posted:In Oregon the seller pays for the buyer's title policy as part of closing costs, but personally I like the peace of mind that I get from it. Odds are slim that there will be an unrecorded lien but the consequences can be awful if it is of any size. Plus with how many releases I have run across that were filed at the wrong county I can certainly imagine a situation where you could have a heloc or something that wasn't uncovered in the title search because it was filed wrong. I don't know how the courts would handle that but I imagine it would be a pain in the rear end to deal with.
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# ? Jan 4, 2015 20:42 |
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I'm thinking of moving from a condo with a 20 minute commute on a train to an hour and 15 minute commute on a train. Upside is what would literally be a $3 million house where I am now is a $300k house there. How insane am I, given that I can work from home without question one day a week and probably up to three if needed and four on occasion?
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# ? Jan 4, 2015 22:21 |
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I'm not sure what track you're on exactly, but I would recommend against buying anything because you think you're going to lose the opportunity in the future due to rising property prices or interest rates. No-one knows what will happen with either. Everyone thought interest rates were sure to rise as the economy recovered, but then oil prices collapsed which killed inflation, and now it's possible rates will remain lower for some time.
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# ? Jan 4, 2015 22:53 |
The fed has indicated rates are on their way back up sometime in the middle of 2015, it's not a 100% sure thing but pretty drat predictable right now. There's an argument to be made for lower income people who are more sensitive to rate changes (higher income people don't care as much and get more benefit from the tax deduction) to be looking to close a deal soonish.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 00:35 |
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baquerd posted:I'm thinking of moving from a condo with a 20 minute commute on a train to an hour and 15 minute commute on a train. Upside is what would literally be a $3 million house where I am now is a $300k house there. How insane am I, given that I can work from home without question one day a week and probably up to three if needed and four on occasion?
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 02:41 |
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Pryor on Fire posted:The fed has indicated rates are on their way back up sometime in the middle of 2015, it's not a 100% sure thing but pretty drat predictable right now. There's an argument to be made for lower income people who are more sensitive to rate changes (higher income people don't care as much and get more benefit from the tax deduction) to be looking to close a deal soonish. They've indicated no such thing. They have observed that asset pricing reflects the expectation that rate increases will begin in mid to late 2015. This is from the most recent FOMC minutes. quote:In addition, the Committee agreed to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1⁄4 percent and to reaffirm the indication in the statement that the Committee’s decision about how long to maintain the current target range for the federal funds rate would depend on its assessment of actual and expected progress toward its objectives of maximum employment and 2 percent in- flation. All but one member agreed that the Committee should reiterate the expectation that it likely would be appropriate to maintain the current target range for the federal funds rate for a considerable time following the end of the asset purchase program in October, especially if projected inflation continued to run below the Com- mittee’s 2 percent longer-run goal, and provided that longer-term inflation expectations remained well an- chored. The one member thought that the Committee should instead strengthen the forward guidance in order to underscore the Committee’s commitment to its 2 percent inflation objective. http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/files/fomcminutes20141029.pdf Oil prices have fallen much further since these minutes were published, and with energy so cheap right now, inflation could stay low, and I doubt we'll see full employment.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 04:00 |
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swenblack posted:The seller does not pay the buyer's closing costs. Please stop perpetuating this idea. Only one party is bringing money to the table. Also, a title search is an audit of the official registry (as opposed to a Google search)--if it doesn't turn up a lien, then they odds of the lien being collectible are almost zero. In your example, an incorrectly filed lien release means that we don't know if the properly filed, valid lien is still in effect. That simply does not equate to an improperly filed lien that is not attached to your property subsequently being attached to it. So I may have worded that incorrectly, but In Oregon, transfer taxes and escrow fees are split by the two parties, and the seller pays for buyer's owner's title policy (buyer pays for lender policy). You car argue that this is priced into the sale price, but I doubt that most sellers are sophisticated enough to pay much attention to anything buy the sales price and any concessions, and perhaps they consider realtor commissions. I think most sellers are only thinking about total sale price when pricing their homes, because most people don't really think about all the cost whether buying or selling. My broader point, which i'll admit I did not articulate too well, was that is releases can be recorded in the wrong county then I would imagine all sorts of issues cropping up with incorrectly filed documents that could cloud the title. Original lien filed at wrong county, but there is a loan out there. Improper document chain on a foreclosure and two owners down it comes up. I look at property reports for refis a lot, and sometimes I have to scan through the deed chain to figure out what has actually transpired and who is the owner. It is not always the person who thinks that they are the owner, and sometimes there are additional owners that the owner thinks were removed long ago. This situation is rare and I touch 50 loans a day, but it happens. I have seen a situation the title company got it wrong, and the property report looks straight, but there is another owner out there. Maybe your dad has a better idea of the cost of fixing those defects. If it really is no big deal when these things happen, or old mechanic's liens come to light after sale, then please enlighten me. I'm not an attorney, and I had assumed that a valid lien is still a valid lien even if it was missed in the title search. I mean for the love of god King County, WA was 6 months behind in recording liens at some point. How could a title search uncover a document that was sent for recording but sat for four months prior to sale? And who pays for that if you don't get an owner's policy? The previous owners of my home owed money to all kinds of people, and a year and a half in I am still getting collection letters for them. The lady died like three years ago, and I bought it from her estate. I like the piece of mind, but then I didn't really have a choice in whether it was purchased or how much the policy cost.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 04:42 |
Uhhh if your source is the fed minutes then I don't know what to tell you. Google it or google how terriblly unreliable the fed itself is in statements and released minutes? I guess I'll have to be your source (I'm an economist) if you don't have interest in doing that or following financial journalism: rates are increasing this year, the only possible debate lies in how much they get raised.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 04:56 |
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Pryor on Fire posted:Uhhh if your source is the fed minutes then I don't know what to tell you. Google it or google how terriblly unreliable the fed itself is in statements and released minutes? I guess I'll have to be your source (I'm an economist) if you don't have interest in doing that or following financial journalism: rates are increasing this year, the only possible debate lies in how much they get raised. The bottom line is that rates will stay low until we have full employment or inflation exceeds 2%, I'm just saying that low energy prices could suppress inflation, and full employment by the end of the year seems unlikely.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 06:10 |
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Pryor on Fire posted:Uhhh if your source is the fed minutes then I don't know what to tell you. Google it or google how terriblly unreliable the fed itself is in statements and released minutes? I guess I'll have to be your source (I'm an economist) if you don't have interest in doing that or following financial journalism: rates are increasing this year, the only possible debate lies in how much they get raised. The exact same conversation happened last January too. Obviously, Rates are so low that it's unlikely they will go down. There is no guarantee they will go up. However if you are 100% convinced they will go up, then I encourage you to mortgage your house to the maximum amount you can. Start playing the futures market. You will make millions, and then you can get a much nicer home. edited for bad grammars daslog fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Jan 5, 2015 |
# ? Jan 5, 2015 13:34 |
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Crosspost from the newbie finance thread: So - I bought a place in August at 30 year fixed, 4.125%. I got a call today from the mortgage lender that I used, saying I could refinance at 30 year fixed, 3.75%. This is completely free with no closing costs, he assures, because it's within a year of purchase and that's a thing they do. It seems a little too good to be true - is there anything that I should be concerned about or should look into in depth before I refi?
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# ? Jan 6, 2015 21:01 |
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esquilax posted:Crosspost from the newbie finance thread: Is there an origination fee?
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# ? Jan 6, 2015 21:07 |
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esquilax posted:It seems a little too good to be true - is there anything that I should be concerned about or should look into in depth before I refi? Make sure "No Closing Costs" means "all closing costs are paid by the lender from the YSP" and not "all closing costs are rolled in to the new loan"
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# ? Jan 6, 2015 21:17 |
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esquilax posted:Crosspost from the newbie finance thread: Also, what SlapActionJackson said in the previous post is important.
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# ? Jan 6, 2015 22:20 |
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esquilax posted:Crosspost from the newbie finance thread: Small update: "Third party" fees would have ran $1,500, so it just wasn't worth it. Thanks everyone.
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# ? Jan 6, 2015 22:47 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 15:01 |
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esquilax posted:Small update: "Third party" fees would have ran $1,500, so it just wasn't worth it. Thanks everyone.
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# ? Jan 6, 2015 23:56 |