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4. Get preapproved for a smaller loan based on the reality you will need to pay two mortgages for a bit, then don't be in a gigantic clusterfuck of a rush to sell/move/buy all at once. It's pretty easy to do and not super stressful as long as you have some savings. You will still get approved for an insanely too high amount of money and shouldn't buy as much house as the bank will give you
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Apr 14, 2016 19:17
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If you are not going to sell the current house before buying another one you should be able to qualify for both mortgages or don't do it.
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Apr 14, 2016 20:36
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SiGmA_X posted:My folks sold their last two houses without listing agents, and bought their last house without a buyers agent. They have owned a few dozen houses (investment and primary residential) over their adult lives, and know the game pretty well, but their buyers were both pretty new to RE. My folks paid an agent to do a market analysis and review paperwork, and an attorney. It was very inexpensive. Neither buyer had an agent either - they did the same thing with paying for a comp and document prep and lawyer to ensure paperwork was all proper. It was pretty straight forward and the buyers had no issues with financing without a normal real estate agent. It's very doable if you cover your bases. You should buy your folks an account then.
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Apr 14, 2016 20:51
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Subjunctive posted:What's the best way to pick a home inspector? What sorts of questions should one ask of them?
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Apr 14, 2016 22:11
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So I close tomorrow and just found out today that the homeowners don't have homestead exemption filed on the property (because they bought another property earlier this year and filed on it), so my house payment is going to be $200 a month more until January 2017. I pitched a fit (since this never came up before and the contract stated that we would take over the exemption, etc.) and got them to agree to give me $1,500 cash tomorrow at closing to cover it up front and all, but drat.
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Apr 14, 2016 22:21
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-S- posted:So I close tomorrow and just found out today that the homeowners don't have homestead exemption filed on the property (because they bought another property earlier this year and filed on it), so my house payment is going to be $200 a month more until January 2017. I pitched a fit (since this never came up before and the contract stated that we would take over the exemption, etc.) and got them to agree to give me $1,500 cash tomorrow at closing to cover it up front and all, but drat. You may be able to get the county to apply the exemption since you were not the owner at the time of required filing. My wife sweet talked my county into it. But this is a problem, feel lucky your agent was smart enough to get it in the offer.
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Apr 14, 2016 22:34
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Elephanthead posted:You may be able to get the county to apply the exemption since you were not the owner at the time of required filing. My wife sweet talked my county into it. But this is a problem, feel lucky your agent was smart enough to get it in the offer. My agent is a dummy, I put it in the offer. I may try to go flirt with the lady at the tax assessor's office.
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Apr 14, 2016 22:39
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Now I have another problem... Our buyers have an agent who apparently works cheap at 4% commission, rather than usual 6%. We have no one representing us. The agent wants us to pay her the entire 4% (no seller's agent to split it with) and sign a form to that effect before the inspection happens tomorrow. I think 3% is fair, but what would her 4% commission actually be if she had to split it with another agent? She also didn't find the house for her buyers, I just happened to talk to them directly at my kid's school. Ugh, realtors 
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Apr 15, 2016 04:42
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.Z. posted:I started looking into what needed to happen in order to buy a new house, while still in possession of the current house and got a few different answers (or I'm getting confused and it's actually all the same thing). What's the best course of action? What I found so far was: As noted, we sold our house and are buying a new one, we just got super lucky on the timing. What we did was rented an apartment (rental house, actually) that we moved into while still getting the old house ready to sell. Having two kids and a cat, this made that part much, much easier! It also meant that we could easily say "if it's still in the house, then it needs to go into storage". It's an extra rent payment a month, but we intentionally got a small place because it's temporary, so the rent's not that bad. The plan was to move into the apartment, put the house on the market. Once we were under contract, we would start looking, but wait for the house to sell entirely before making any offers. That way, when making offers on a new house, we could have no contingencies on sale, since it's a seller's market right now. We just happened, while going to random open houses, to encounter a house we fell in love with and was still available for purchase, so a week after we accepted an offer on our house we made an offer. Not entirely our plan, but it's working out for us (the stress-induced rant in the parenting thread notwithstanding). If your finances can afford the additional rent and cost of moving, I would heavily recommend a similar situation: move into a temporary location for a couple of months. Put your old house on the market, and once you're under contract, use the knowledge of how much profit you're getting for the house to get a pre-approval for what your budget allows. Use that to shop around for a new house. Even if you have to make a contingent offer, it's "contingent on sale but we're under contract and everything looks good" instead of "contingent on praying our house sells". If you can't afford it or schedules don't work out for other ways...yeah, listen to other people.
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Apr 15, 2016 04:52
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newts posted:Now I have another problem... As for whether she found the house or not, that's the buyer's problem, not yours.
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Apr 15, 2016 04:55
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What's the consensus on mortgage brokers? We were thinking of just doing everything through the bank, but some people have been telling us to look into a mortgage broker. A friend's wife is a mortgage broker and he gave me her card.
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Apr 15, 2016 05:16
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newts posted:Now I have another problem... Normally the sellers have a contract with an agent. The sellers generally have an agreement with their agent to collect their fee regardless of how the buyer is found. Are you doing FSBO? You can make a deal without any agents and it is the buyers problem to compensate their agent for any services provided.
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Apr 15, 2016 05:51
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lampey posted:Normally the sellers have a contract with an agent. The sellers generally have an agreement with their agent to collect their fee regardless of how the buyer is found. Are you doing FSBO? You can make a deal without any agents and it is the buyers problem to compensate their agent for any services provided. Yes, why are you paying an agent you have not hired, and which has provided zero services to you 3% of your house sale price? If you're not under contract with that agent, don't pay her a penny.
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Apr 15, 2016 08:23
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wooger posted:Yes, why are you paying an agent you have not hired, and which has provided zero services to you 3% of your house sale price? The thing is.. It's a good price and we need the deal to go through. We offered her 3% which I think is way more than fair, considering we have to hire our own lawyer for our end. I just wondered if we were being dicks about it.
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Apr 15, 2016 13:20
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newts posted:The thing is.. It's a good price and we need the deal to go through. We offered her 3% which I think is way more than fair, considering we have to hire our own lawyer for our end. I just wondered if we were being dicks about it. If you go FSBO you have to decide how much to offer buyers agents and it appears in the MLS listing. I believe 2.5% is the recommended minimum in most areas, 3% is the standard. If you hire a selling agent they decide how much to offer.
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Apr 15, 2016 13:46
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newts posted:The thing is.. It's a good price and we need the deal to go through. We offered her 3% which I think is way more than fair, considering we have to hire our own lawyer for our end. I just wondered if we were being dicks about it. When we bought our agreement with our buyer's agent said that if we did FSBO and they didn't offer a commission we were responsible for it. On the other hand, don't think of this as 3% out of your pocket, it's 3% built into their offer that actually goes to their agent.
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Apr 15, 2016 14:03
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Nessa posted:What's the consensus on mortgage brokers? We were thinking of just doing everything through the bank, but some people have been telling us to look into a mortgage broker. A friend's wife is a mortgage broker and he gave me her card. Unless you don't feel you are willing to invest the time in shopping around, there is really no reason at all not to get a variety of quotes. You are looking at the potential of saving thousands over the life of your loan. It is not the same for everyone of course, but standard rules of thumb is that you can get a pre-approval pretty easily, and you do have a 14 day window of multiple lenders running credit checks where it only counts as one credit inquiry. There is not really a downside to shopping.
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Apr 15, 2016 15:09
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wooger posted:Yes, why are you paying an agent you have not hired, and which has provided zero services to you 3% of your house sale price? Because if newts doesn't pay the commission, the buyers will have to. And that may be enough to torpedo the deal since most buyers with an agent make offers under the assumption that they won't be paying commission separately.
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Apr 15, 2016 15:36
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Axiem posted:As noted, we sold our house and are buying a new one, we just got super lucky on the timing. What we did was rented an apartment (rental house, actually) that we moved into while still getting the old house ready to sell. Having two kids and a cat, this made that part much, much easier! It also meant that we could easily say "if it's still in the house, then it needs to go into storage". It's an extra rent payment a month, but we intentionally got a small place because it's temporary, so the rent's not that bad. I thought this was how all house purchases go. In the UK - you put your house up for sale, then only when you've received and accepted an offer do you start looking for one to buy. You can get a mortgage pre-approved with just your expected deposit, earnings etc. online in a few minutes, at any time. Not really clear why you needed to rent in the meantime. Did you have a lot of work to do to the house, or did you just think it'd sell faster while empty? wooger fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Apr 15, 2016 |
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Apr 15, 2016 16:21
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Nessa posted:What's the consensus on mortgage brokers? We were thinking of just doing everything through the bank, but some people have been telling us to look into a mortgage broker. A friend's wife is a mortgage broker and he gave me her card. We did not regret using a broker. It was free to us (they are paid by a commission the bank adds) and he had the ability to check about 20 banks every day or so for a week or two, to find us the best possible deal. Since a mortgage can be freely sold to another bank in most cases, you don't get any particular benefit from using a bank you favor (like, if you love their customer service or convenient branch location or something) so you might as well just get the most favorable deal. And loan rates and terms adjust twice daily so you are never gonna get a full range of copetetive comparable quotes on your own. In theory the broker's commission has to come from somewhere, but in practice I suspect it's just a tiny drain on banks' profitability that they willingly pay in order to get the exact mortgages on their books that they want that day.
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Apr 15, 2016 16:57
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I think the ideal strategy is to use a mortgage broker as well as talking to your local credit union independently, don't even tell either part about the other. In Colorado at least it seems like the credit unions offer slightly better rates and lower fees for about 75% of people compared to brokers, but the broker occasionally does better. Plus you may or may not have some leverage to negotiate down a bit if one party or the other tries to throw some bullshit at you.
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Apr 15, 2016 17:16
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Nessa posted:What's the consensus on mortgage brokers? We were thinking of just doing everything through the bank, but some people have been telling us to look into a mortgage broker. A friend's wife is a mortgage broker and he gave me her card. Imagine the mortgage marketplace as millions of piles of money that they want to invest in very specific types of buyers and homes, and they are offering specific terms for those buyers. Your circumstances will undoubtedly qualify for many of those piles of money, and you're looking for the best one. Banks will have access to their own piles of money and maybe one or two other investors. A mortgage broker will have access to maybe a few hundred piles of money. An online broker search like Zillow's will have access to just about every pile of money. Maybe your bank has the best terms on the market, but odds are that a broker will beat it. It's also likely that an online broker is going to beat your local broker. I don't think I've ever heard of a local bank/broker beating the rates found on Zillow's mortgage rate search. Keep in mind you aren't getting the same level of service as you would with a bank, and you're a black mark on the local banking market by going online, but how much is that worth to you? $10,000 over the life of the loan?
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Apr 15, 2016 17:27
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newts posted:Now I have another problem... I thought about your post all morning for some reason, and I think there are two possibilities. 1. The agent made that 4% comment to the buyer for your specific home, in which case she expected to act as dual-agency. 4% isn't a weird rate for that type of deal, but you are perfectly in your right to not want to pay it. This isn't a particularly great deal for either you or the buyer, but the agent saw dollar signs flashing when she saw a transaction happening between two unrepresented parties. 2. The agent made the 4% comment for any home, in which case the "sell" was that she would be able to negotiate an additional 2% off any home price by negotiating with the seller and seller's agent to reduce the commission to 4%, where the agents would have to wrestle somewhere between a 1-3 split and a 2-2 split. This is weird, because the seller's agent is under no obligation to deal at all, and some may be willing to deal but still demand 3%, and I find it hard to believe that she'd work for a 1% commission. Either way, the agent is behaving unethically because she's offering something she can't guarantee. Represented sellers have already signed documents with their agents promising a certain fee, and buyers typically don't get to touch that. Another comment about what the agent did, at least for me in TX. She was on call and showed me houses as soon as they hit the market, coordinating with the sellers and handling negotiation. For that she was very valuable. Once the deal was set, she helped me put the offer on paper. After that it became clear that she had very little left to do, and the responsibility moved onto the title company and lender. My agent sat there at closing and didn't do anything. I only add this comment to say that if the buyer and seller are already speaking to one another and in negotiation on a price, there's very little value that an agent could possibly add. Andy Dufresne fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Apr 15, 2016 |
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Apr 15, 2016 17:34
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We got Loan Estimates from a combination of online brokers, local credit unions, and "big banks" and took the lowest rate and costs to our builder's "preferred lender" and had them match it. They did. Our last house, we didn't build, but we did the same thing: get a bunch of quotes from different banks, pit them against each other, and then when you are sure you have the lowest numbers possible take them to the bank/credit union you have accounts with and have them match it. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain in this arrangement. Whatever you do, don't use Lending Tree unless you want to have 1000 calls/emails within the first 24 hours. Just use Zillow and Mortgage Professor, and then look at Chase/Wells Fargo/Bank of America just for the hell of it.
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Apr 15, 2016 17:46
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Andy Dufresne posted:I thought about your post all morning for some reason, and I think there are two possibilities. Yeah, this is correct. I'm actually not sure how the commission split would happen if we had a seller's agent, since we would have probably agreed to a 6% total commission if we'd hired someone. She's already shown the buyers a lot of homes, so I'm sure she's earned some commission, but not our home. And I wouldn't have agreed to 4% if I'd been making a deal with her. Actually, the thing that pisses me off the most is that she tried to slip it past us: we're having the house inspected today and she said we'd need to sign a form that gives her permission to show the home before that can happen. Hidden in the small print at the end is a clause that says we agree to pay her a 4% commission. We didnt sign it, and now she says don't worry about the paperwork, well just do the inspection anyway.
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Apr 15, 2016 17:59
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newts posted:Yeah, this is correct. I'm actually not sure how the commission split would happen if we had a seller's agent, since we would have probably agreed to a 6% total commission if we'd hired someone. She's already shown the buyers a lot of homes, so I'm sure she's earned some commission, but not our home. And I wouldn't have agreed to 4% if I'd been making a deal with her. tell her to gently caress off. e: and contact her office manager and relay this story. that's slimy poo poo.
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Apr 15, 2016 18:02
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Nessa posted:What's the consensus on mortgage brokers? We were thinking of just doing everything through the bank, but some people have been telling us to look into a mortgage broker. A friend's wife is a mortgage broker and he gave me her card. I've only bought one house and I used a mortgage broker who was also my agent. I think it really helped me close quickly. There were no surprises during the process and I always knew what to expect because he was so familiar with every step. My experience being positive probably has more to do with the fact that my mortgage broker/agent is just an honest, helpful, knowledgeable person who didn't try to take undue advantage of me though.
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Apr 15, 2016 18:07
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Officially a homeowner again 
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Apr 15, 2016 20:25
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So sorry!
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Apr 15, 2016 20:48
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newts posted:Yeah, this is correct. I'm actually not sure how the commission split would happen if we had a seller's agent, since we would have probably agreed to a 6% total commission if we'd hired someone. She's already shown the buyers a lot of homes, so I'm sure she's earned some commission, but not our home. And I wouldn't have agreed to 4% if I'd been making a deal with her. Wow, that is an incredibly lovely thing that she tried to do to you. I think that you should probably treat this person as trying to gently caress you over from now on, and definitely don't give her any more than 3% (if it's not too late to say "you can have 2% or you can walk")
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Apr 15, 2016 20:50
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wooger posted:I thought this was how all house purchases go. In the UK - you put your house up for sale, then only when you've received and accepted an offer do you start looking for one to buy. You can get a mortgage pre-approved with just your expected deposit, earnings etc. online in a few minutes, at any time. The normal pattern for people who already live in houses is to get a pre-approval based on what you plan on listing the house for, and once your house is on the market you start looking for a new house. If you find one you like, you make an offer contingent on your old house actually selling--which, if you're unable to sell, means things can very easily fall through. Otherwise, if you've actually sold your house, you're rushing to find a place to buy before you get kicked out by the new owners. We wanted to rent for several reasons. First is that trying to keep a house clean for showing with two kids under five and a cat isn't exactly easy. Second is that it makes it a lot easier for an agent to schedule time to do a showing, because they're not alerting us. Third is that our plan was to be completely done selling and closed on the sale before really looking for a house to buy; we wouldn't be guessing at how our finances would play out after closing costs etc. that way. Fourth is that in case we couldn't find something to buy, we wouldn't start getting into issues with our sale and having to ask questions and such. Given the market here, it was entirely possible that after we started making offers, it could take several of them before one was actually accepted, and that could be weeks or months after our house closed on its sale. It basically gave us a lot more freedom of schedule and flexibility without having to do the closing-date dance that a lot of people (including, it turns out, the people buying our house) have to do.
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Apr 16, 2016 02:53
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Joining all you suckers soon, closing on a house on the 29th, mortgage is all final approved and everybody is happy and waiting. What can and will go wrong between now and then? 
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Apr 16, 2016 02:59
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gtkor posted:Unless you don't feel you are willing to invest the time in shopping around, there is really no reason at all not to get a variety of quotes. You are looking at the potential of saving thousands over the life of your loan. Well, we had a meeting with the bank today and got pre-approved. They apparently have a promotion going on for existing customers that would give us an interest rate of 2.6% if we get a house in the next 3 months. My father-in-law came to see a house with us today. It was an adorable little house with lot's of character and charm and a lovely yard, but my father-in-law said it would need about 20-30 grand in repairs. :/ He even thought the place had a lot of potential and knew what he would do with it if he had the money. The asking price was $271,000, but he said it would really only be worth it if we paid $230,000. Oh well, I'm sure we will see many more houses over the next few months. The stairway and 1950's style of the home really reminded me a lot of my grandparent's old farmhouse, so I was quite smitten by the place.
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Apr 16, 2016 03:06
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alnilam posted:I talked to friends who had bought a house, asked them if they had any recommendations, and then I also asked my realtor for recommendations. There was one person in common between both lists, meaning he was good at explaining things to the buyer, and thorough enough to please the (more experienced with these kind of things) realtor. I was pretty happy with him too. Captain Cool posted:Well-regarded firm is a good option if they can fit your schedule. Otherwise you can look on places like Angie's List or get recommendations from people you know in the area. Compare their certifications and get a sample report from each. I would avoid anyone recommended by your realtor, especially if home inspectors aren't required to be licensed in your area. Thanks! The place I ended up buying yesterday (holy poo poo) had an existing inspection by the firm I wanted -- inspector was a professional engineer, and the firm even sells a warranty if I want it. It's only 7 years old, and the guy who built it lives next door in an mirror-image twin. A friend of mine who is getting licensed in another city said the report looked great, and that the firm was top-notch, so I went for it. Excited/happy/nervous/eek.
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Apr 16, 2016 10:10
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Frinkahedron posted:Joining all you suckers soon, closing on a house on the 29th, mortgage is all final approved and everybody is happy and waiting. What can and will go wrong between now and then? My closing got delayed because my signature didn't properly match my driver's license and was rejected as a match. I had to re-sign, carefully copying my driver's license.
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Apr 16, 2016 18:17
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Subjunctive posted:Thanks! Oh man I'm so sorry, that's exactly the kind of situation where the universe will likely say "hahaha, nope" and put a giant sinkhole under your house
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Apr 17, 2016 00:16
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Subjunctive posted:... It's only 7 years old, and the guy who built it lives next door in an mirror-image twin. ... "Yeah we built your house first, turns out we were holding the plans upside down. We figured it out partway through, so don't worry!" Seriously though, the guy who built it having the same house is a good sign.
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Apr 17, 2016 01:01
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mastershakeman posted:Unfortunately, anywhere near transit or a major city (aka jobs) is hot hot hot so the only way to avoid that is to buy an in exurb which most people don't want to do. In the DC area, that will not save you because the commute time, housing costs (see Loudoun County) combined with the worst traffic in the nation will drive you insane.
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Apr 17, 2016 07:09
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Delorence Fickle posted:In the DC area, that will not save you because the commute time, housing costs (see Loudoun County) combined with the worst traffic in the nation will drive you insane. You really can't win in that area. My (10-mile) commute on bus/Metrorail from Annandale to DC took about an hour each way on average - and then there were those special days where it took 2 or 3 times as long thanks to breakdowns. Nothing like a 90-minute standing-room-only train ride in July with no AC to really make one love life 
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Apr 17, 2016 15:39
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newts posted:Yeah, this is correct. I'm actually not sure how the commission split would happen if we had a seller's agent, since we would have probably agreed to a 6% total commission if we'd hired someone. She's already shown the buyers a lot of homes, so I'm sure she's earned some commission, but not our home. And I wouldn't have agreed to 4% if I'd been making a deal with her. Tell her that her commission is between her and her buyers and that you won't be paying one red cent to her after this.
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Apr 18, 2016 15:07
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