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BEHOLD: MY CAPE posted:Well it's not like they aren't bothering to counter your offer; just like the initial offer, counteroffers are contractually binding so if anyone came over you they can't really counteroffer you
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Mar 22, 2015 23:30
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TheWevel posted:This is more of a home selling question: How much are you willing to lose chasing gains? CDs would give you a slightly higher risk-free return. Some kind of high-grade bond fund would probably be up next, slightly higher returns for slightly higher risks. A stock index fund would have potentially very big gains (the S&P 500 was up 11% for 2014 and nearly 30% for 2013)... but you could also get annihilated (47% drop in 2008). It should be easy to answer any questions from the mortgage people - just sell the funds and give them some brokerage statements. I gave them three months of statements and they were happy.
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Mar 23, 2015 07:27
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Trying to buy in Kansas City, where everything around $250k is basically swept off the market the day of listing at at least full price, while selling near Milwaukee, where at least it's similar so I can get out of this loving state. But jesus, hunting for houses via facetime is the WORST.
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Mar 23, 2015 13:03
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We unfortunately inherited a house a few months back that we need to unload. One of the top reviewed agents we've found so far has a few different options. Would there be anything useful to ask them to clarify about Option Five (i.e. 6% or more whaaat?)? quote:Option Four: $2900 prepaid consulting fee with $300 paid at closing for listing your property on all 3 local MLS’s. This option includes combo lockbox rental, listing documents, photo and video shoot, arrange showings with buyers or buyers agents, online marketing of your property with its own web pages, seller negotiation advice, and other advice provided to seller throughout the transaction process. This is for a property asking price of under $200,000. $500 additional for every $50,000 in asking price. Full service. Seller will select a buyer agent commission amount as low as $200 paid at closing on up to 3.25% paid at closing. Ask to see my prepay consulting fee agreement. We will check out some other realtors too but if this was the only one left on earth, trying to decide which would be the better option to unload a ~$100k older house. In general we will be moving out of state soon and plan to just sell it as-is and discount anything that needs fixed up.
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Mar 23, 2015 19:51
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What the hell are options 1-3? The prepaid price option 4 is basically the same as paying a full commission on your $100k home except it's guaranteed up front. What is the benefit to you in that situation? I'd take a traditional commission based agreement if I were going to hire a seller's agent.
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Mar 23, 2015 20:09
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BEHOLD: MY CAPE posted:What the hell are options 1-3? The other options were more of a "FSBO" style where they would just do showings but not give any advise. Or some other options to turn it into a rental which we're definitely not interested in doing. This was their full spiel http://www.lawrencelist.com/FSBOexp.pdf BEHOLD: MY CAPE posted:I'd take a traditional commission based agreement if I were going to hire a seller's agent. That sounds logical enough. There's really no way its going to sell for over 100k so the flat rate wouldn't really help save any cash. I am just a little leery of "unknown unknowns", even after lurking in this thread for months. Any buyer's agent fees would be paid by the buyer out of their own pocket right, or would our seller's agent share their 6% with them? I definitely recall reading that the buyer is the only one bringing any money to the table in any case.
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Mar 23, 2015 20:55
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sadus posted:The other options were more of a "FSBO" style where they would just do showings but not give any advise. Or some other options to turn it into a rental which we're definitely not interested in doing. This was their full spiel http://www.lawrencelist.com/FSBOexp.pdf You've got it backwards. The seller pays both agents, at least in the US. Usually the 6% is split between the buyers' and sellers' agents.
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Mar 23, 2015 21:06
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Leperflesh posted:You've got it backwards. The seller pays both agents, at least in the US. Usually the 6% is split between the buyers' and sellers' agents. Who pays whom and when is entirely negotiable depending upon market conditions, but yes bundling commissions and fees into the seller's proceeds to be distributed by the buyer's agent is the most standard practice, as it increases commissions a small amount and makes it easier for the non-cash buyer to pay a share of it by essentially financing it into the mortgage. It's really all a shell game between the players that depends upon the price elasticity of demand for the property offered for sale, though. If you are a FSBO seller with a very desirable property that would move itself with a sign in the yard, you could insist that buyer pays agent fees. However, if you were struggling to sell in a slow market you might be obligated to offer a generous commission to the buyer's agent out of your list price in order to attract interest.
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Mar 23, 2015 23:03
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I'm fully closed and moved in. After sliding sideways going up the driveway and almost taking out the mailbox, I discovered that the snowblower the seller gave me does in fact work. Water softener had an issue that was me not looking at the pilot at the right angle to realize that it was actually fully functional, but that wasn't too bad as expensive lessons go. Now the seller's agent is asking me for a copy of the appraisal, ostensibly to help the appraisal of another property he's selling. Could there be any detrimental outcome to me supplying him with this?
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Mar 24, 2015 01:15
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baquerd posted:I'm fully closed and moved in. After sliding sideways going up the driveway and almost taking out the mailbox, I discovered that the snowblower the seller gave me does in fact work. Water softener had an issue that was me not looking at the pilot at the right angle to realize that it was actually fully functional, but that wasn't too bad as expensive lessons go. No, other than you paid several hundred dollars for it and he wants it from you for free (after he got paid in the sale) to help him in his pursuit of making money, I'd tell him he can have a copy for $100 or something if he'd like it but maybe I'm rude. "Helping the apprasial" is bullshit, perhaps it contains important pricing information to him but the appraisal of any property is an independent process.
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Mar 24, 2015 02:12
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I'm still in awe that the appraisal cost $395. It looked like roughly an hour or two of work.
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Mar 24, 2015 02:24
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Because we went with an FHA loan, we had slightly stricter appraisal. As a result, our appraiser required us to finish a bathroom that was not completed at the time of his appraisal and then have him come back out to give a final look over. We did the required work, and instead of the guy coming out, he just said "yeah, I assume it's all in shape, you can close now." That mother fucker.
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Mar 24, 2015 03:03
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Final walkthrough is tomorrow. Closing is Wednesday. I'm praying to house jesus for no fuckups.
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Mar 24, 2015 03:19
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Andy Dufresne posted:I'm still in awe that the appraisal cost $395. It looked like roughly an hour or two of work. How many appraisals a day do you think even a really good, highly-qualified and in-demand appraiser can do? A lot of work like this where someone can't really have a second job (everything has to be done during the day, usually on short notice) but can't possibly do more than like three or four a day, has to cost a lot more than you'd expect. The appraiser taking $400 for each appraisal likely spends an hour or two on site, another hour or two prepping the paperwork (and they supposedly pull some research to get the comps in the area and decide which are relevant and look at the trending sales prices etc.). So they probably get one or two appraisals a day. And then out of that $400 to $800 a day they're pulling in, they have to pay all their business expenses, including travel, health insurance, retirement, etc. $600 to $800 a day, five days a week, as a contractor is still a decent living. But it's hardly rolling in the wealth.
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Mar 24, 2015 03:31
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Konstantin posted:Then as a seller you should fire your real estate agent for listing at too low a price. If I was a seller in a hot market I'd list way over market value hoping some sucker pays, if they don't I'd either pick from the below list offers that do come in or lower the price later. Never understood why agents go for the strategy of listing for under market value, it seems like you're walking away from a ton of profit. Probably the same reason eBay sellers start auctions at $1.
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Mar 24, 2015 03:54
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We're moving to a new city in about a year and a half, and as part of the move both of us will have new jobs. We want to buy shortly after we get there, will both of us recently having started new jobs and not really being established in the area affect our loan offers or does it only matter that we have an income at all? We're absolutely 100% not even going to think about applying for a mortgage till we're both gainfully employed just in case one of us were to lose our job. The only other loan I've ever gotten is a car loan so this house thing is new and exciting and terrifying all at the same time.
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Mar 24, 2015 04:04
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So neither of you have lived in that city for a long time, or at all? Don't buy a house somewhere you might wind up not wanting to stay. Or at the very least, live in the city for long enough to get a good feel for the neighborhoods, and which one you might want to live in. To answer your real question, yeah it can be an issue that your job is brand new, banks like to see a minimum of 2 years at a job. It's not like, a 100% requirement, but it can be a problem.
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Mar 24, 2015 04:49
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:We're moving to a new city in about a year and a half, and as part of the move both of us will have new jobs. We want to buy shortly after we get there, will both of us recently having started new jobs and not really being established in the area affect our loan offers or does it only matter that we have an income at all? We're absolutely 100% not even going to think about applying for a mortgage till we're both gainfully employed just in case one of us were to lose our job. We had no issues getting financing after moving to a new state for a new job (even going from 2 full time earners to just 1). I really wish I had known about this thread 20 months ago, because after 18 months I realized I hate it here and am looking for a new job so I can move. At least wait a year or two after moving before you buy. I don't think I will buy again until retirement, maybe.
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Mar 24, 2015 14:21
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Our lender wanted to see two years in the same industry, not necessarily the same job/company/title. So if you worked at 3 different banks in the last 2 years, it's probably fine. If you worked at a bank, a restaurant, and a circus in the last 2 years, they'll probably be concerned.
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Mar 24, 2015 16:50
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I put an offer on a house. It was apparently pretty close but ultimately I got outbid. The other place I had on my list moved before I could put another offer down. Real-estate battle continues. Seattle real-estate market can go die in a fire.
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Mar 24, 2015 17:53
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ryde posted:I put an offer on a house. It was apparently pretty close but ultimately I got outbid. The other place I had on my list moved before I could put another offer down. I know it's the house buying megathread but as someone about to list a house near Seattle I'm loving this market right now. Keep that inventory down for another week or two!
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Mar 24, 2015 19:49
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Did the walkthrough today. There's a bullet hole in the back shed and I found the bullet embedded in the door frame.  I'm hoping the neighborhood has improved since then.
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Mar 24, 2015 19:51
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canyoneer posted:Our lender wanted to see two years in the same industry, not necessarily the same job/company/title. So if you worked at 3 different banks in the last 2 years, it's probably fine. Also depends on type of income received, if it's just a base salary or hourly rate that you're using to qualify then a short time on a new job isn't generally that big of a deal. If you're commission based or need bonus / overtime to qualify then you're more likely to have issues even if you're in the same industry since you don't have the required history of receipt with your new employer.
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Mar 24, 2015 21:48
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canyoneer posted:Our lender wanted to see two years in the same industry, not necessarily the same job/company/title. So if you worked at 3 different banks in the last 2 years, it's probably fine. Yeah same. I had no problem getting my recent mortgage with 3 months at my new job, since I've been in the same industry for 16 years.
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Mar 24, 2015 22:51
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Leperflesh posted:So neither of you have lived in that city for a long time, or at all? Don't buy a house somewhere you might wind up not wanting to stay. Or at the very least, live in the city for long enough to get a good feel for the neighborhoods, and which one you might want to live in. We're going to rent something small and cheap while we continue saving for our down payment. We're being completely spergy about planning this move since we have so long before we can actually do anything. We're also taking a few trips up there to scope out the place plus we have a bunch of friends who live there to give us insight too. How many of you put down the full 20% down payment? My sister bought her $400k house with just $15k down with no issues. We're aiming for at least a $50k down payment saved up before we seriously start looking in the same price range.
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Mar 24, 2015 22:59
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:We're going to rent something small and cheap while we continue saving for our down payment. We're being completely spergy about planning this move since we have so long before we can actually do anything. We're also taking a few trips up there to scope out the place plus we have a bunch of friends who live there to give us insight too. The entire reason for putting 20% down is to avoid private mortgage insurance, which is a huge sunk cost that doesn't provide you any benefit. If you put $50k down on a $400k home you'd pay roughly $150 per month in PMI on top of principal, interest, taxes, and insurance. Lenders can be a pain about removing PMI later on (requiring a higher LTV and a new appraisal).
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Mar 24, 2015 23:06
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Andy Dufresne posted:The entire reason for putting 20% down is to avoid private mortgage insurance, which is a huge sunk cost that doesn't provide you any benefit. If you put $50k down on a $400k home you'd pay roughly $150 per month in PMI on top of principal, interest, taxes, and insurance. Lenders can be a pain about removing PMI later on (requiring a higher LTV and a new appraisal). On our current plan we should have at least 20% saved up before we're in a position to buy (we should actually have $86,000 pre-move), assuming no major financial crises occur. Our parents may chip some money our way too but we're not counting on it. I know someone who managed to buy a $200,000 house with only $5,000 down, I'm not entirely sure how she managed to swing it but I'm sure her PMI is absurdly high.
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Mar 24, 2015 23:31
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It's just one of those things where you're the only one looking out for your financial best interests. Lenders and agents/sales people are only interested in whether you can make the payments and close the deal.
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Mar 24, 2015 23:48
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:How many of you put down the full 20% down payment? We had saved up 20%, but negotiated 15% with no PMI. We went with that option to have the extra cash in our emergency fund. Our broker was really surprised we had that much saved up. Apparently, he deals a lot with 5% down people, which is why he was willing to make the deal with us. Probably happy to finally have a financially sound couple that would reliably pay back the loan.
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Mar 25, 2015 01:43
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:On our current plan we should have at least 20% saved up before we're in a position to buy (we should actually have $86,000 pre-move), assuming no major financial crises occur. Our parents may chip some money our way too but we're not counting on it. Yeah there are some loan programs out there that are 0 down, USDA still does those but they're pretty strict about both your income being below a certain threshold and they'll only loan to you if the house is in certain areas (primarily rural, small town, city outskirt stuff, not a sprawling suburb in the middle of a metropolis). There's no PMI on this kind of loan but your interest rate is at least a few percentage points higher, so it's a wash If you don't have 20% down, then your best bet is to try and hit either 10% or 15% and pay PMI on a conventional loan. If that's not an option due to your credit or you simply don't have 10%, then your next best bet is to go FHA, but the PMI rates with FHA are usually a lot higher. Beyond there there are various niche loan programs that most people don't qualify for Frankly, PMI is lovely and if you're going to pay FHA PMI then you're probably better off renting, from a cost/month standpoint. QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Mar 25, 2015 |
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Mar 25, 2015 03:52
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What about paying a lump sum for PMI and getting it over with at the beginning? Unless I horribly mangled my math, I think I ended up coming out ahead. $134k total, 5% down, I paid a little more than $2700 and that killed my PMI. No idea how common that is, but I think it worked pretty well for me.
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Mar 25, 2015 04:43
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Panthrax posted:What about paying a lump sum for PMI and getting it over with at the beginning? Unless I horribly mangled my math, I think I ended up coming out ahead. $134k total, 5% down, I paid a little more than $2700 and that killed my PMI. No idea how common that is, but I think it worked pretty well for me. Yeah, that's basically a steal. Are you sure that you're not getting charged a higher interest rate than you would have been with a normal PMI plan? The up-front payment thing is irregular. And at 5% down you'd normally be looking at about 7-8 years of payments on a 30 year loan, so that's like... $30/month for PMI? Yeah, that's extremely low
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Mar 25, 2015 06:58
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QuarkJets posted:Yeah, that's basically a steal. Are you sure that you're not getting charged a higher interest rate than you would have been with a normal PMI plan? The up-front payment thing is irregular. And at 5% down you'd normally be looking at about 7-8 years of payments on a 30 year loan, so that's like... $30/month for PMI? Yeah, that's extremely low Rate was the same whether I paid it or not. 4.125% which I think was about par for the course in October.
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Mar 25, 2015 13:22
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:I know someone who managed to buy a $200,000 house with only $5,000 down, I'm not entirely sure how she managed to swing it but I'm sure her PMI is absurdly high. Navy Federal Credit Union has a no money down loan where you don't have to pay PMI, but the big catch here is that your credit score has to be 730 at the minimum. This is the loan I currently have.
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Mar 25, 2015 15:04
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http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_27780191/denver-buyers-up-their-game-be-last-bidder-standing-real-estate-deals Welcome to hell (unless you're selling!) Closing today... quote:The National Association of Realtors considers a six-month supply of homes available for sale a "balanced" market and the national average is at about 4.6 months. quote:A balanced market would call for 7,332 detached homes available for sale in the $200,000-$399,000 price range in the metro Denver area, PorchLight estimates. quote:Homes expected to move quickly will typically list on Thursday with buyers getting to tour on Friday and Saturday. After offers are collected, listing agents present them to sellers and help cull them, with winners often announced on Monday. quote:That typically starts by bidding above the list price, assuming a home is reasonably priced to begin with. In a normal market, a seller gets the listing price or better about 5 to 10 percent of the time, said Thompson. In metro Denver, they are now getting it 56 percent of the time.
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Mar 25, 2015 16:57
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Note that PMI removal can vary with state regulations as well. We went with 5% down and PMI, because we picked up a home that needed a ton of work, but were able to DIY for the cost of materials in about a month and a half after closing. Comps in the neighborhood at the time were ~20-25% higher than our purchase price (and have gone up in the last year and a half). We wanted to have the extra cash onhand for the repairs/updates, which ended up being another $10-12k in the last year. Minnesota simply requires a new appraisal after 2 years, and as long as we hit 80% LTV with the new appraisal our PMI will be canceled. Overall, PMI will end up costing us $1489 over two years, which is a trade I was willing to make to keep the cash needed to make the remodels/repairs we wanted right away. Once PMI is done, we'll just roll the extra money into the monthly payment and apply to the principal. Also, our property tax valuation went up 18% from 2014-15 (staying basically flat 2013-14), and is supposed to make another 8.5% jump in 2016. Do never buy? PitViper fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Mar 25, 2015 |
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Mar 25, 2015 17:13
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Delorence Fickle posted:Navy Federal Credit Union has a no money down loan where you don't have to pay PMI, but the big catch here is that your credit score has to be 730 at the minimum. We were planning on going with Navy Federal, I've had an account with them since I was 8. Do both of us need credit scores over 730? Mines 716 and my husband's is 750 I think. I'll have to look more into this.
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Mar 25, 2015 17:56
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Delorence Fickle posted:Navy Federal Credit Union has a no money down loan where you don't have to pay PMI, but the big catch here is that your credit score has to be 730 at the minimum.
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Mar 25, 2015 19:53
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moana posted:Wow, that sounds awesome. I might have to bribe my husband's grandfather into joining so we can join too. There's no other catch? Their rates look really competitive. When was the last time you went through carrier qualifications flying a detached single-family? You may have to prove you're current on your quals, other than that I don't think there are any catches.
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Mar 25, 2015 20:43
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It says any DOD retirees can join, or am I reading it wrong?
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Mar 25, 2015 21:00
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