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I'm going to see about not doing escrow if I end up refinancing. They quoted me $200 for a refinance from 4% down to 3.65%. Which is great even if it is a bit of hassle to get all the paperwork and stuff. But then another $500 escrow fee on top of that? Blech. I dunno, am I balking over too little?
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May 26, 2016 03:33
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Can confirm, do never escrow. This is yet another thing that can gently caress you over because you're paying a middleman who has absolutely no invested interest in 1. paying on time or 2. paying accurately or 3. keeping you in your house, whereas if YOU missed the annual tax bill and didn't show up at the town/village office with a check to pay it on the spot, YOU deliberately hosed yourself over. My old When Ocwen filed bankruptcy and sold my mortgage to Chase, I wasted absolutely no time calling Chase with a folder full of paperwork and proof and intending to demand that they close the escrow account immediately. Before I said anything past "I'd like to close the escrow account, please", the Chase rep looked at my LTV, asked me to email him copies of last year's paid tax stubs, verified that no taxes were due in the next month, and asked for a check for the shortfall from the transferred escrow account to cover any discrepancies while they did a final accounting. A month later I got a refund for about 75% of the so-called "overage" and the account was closed with no run-arounds, no arguing, no BS. For my next mortgage, the first thing out of my mouth with any lender is going to be me demanding that they waive escrow with no point buy reductions, no APR hijinks, no BS. I'm tired of this scam, because make no bones about it, it's definitely a scam. Do. Never. Escrow.
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May 26, 2016 04:12
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Some people ^^^^ have had really lovely experiences with escrow but I would like to add a counterpoint, I have had excellent and perfect behavior regarding the escrow account from 3 or 4 different loan servicers and it was extremely convenient and didn't cost extra money. So it varies, I think.moana posted:I'm going to see about not doing escrow if I end up refinancing. They quoted me $200 for a refinance from 4% down to 3.65%. Which is great even if it is a bit of hassle to get all the paperwork and stuff. But then another $500 escrow fee on top of that? Blech. I dunno, am I balking over too little?
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May 26, 2016 04:26
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slap me silly posted:$500 fee or $500 initial deposit to the escrow account? Because the former is wasted and useless but the latter is still totally your $$.
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May 26, 2016 04:51
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Ugh, I would be grouchy about that. Never paid an "escrow fee" before and I bought once and refinanced twice. Paid plenty of other fees but it was pretty transparent what they were.
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May 26, 2016 05:24
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It's pretty common to charge an escrow waiver fee, as a mortgage without an escrow account is a slight risk to the bank. Doesn't hurt to ask your lender for an offsetting credit if they're really stretching for the business. Still totally worth it to not have to hassle with the useless middleman even if they won't. e: VVVVVVVV Moral of the story: get escrow waived so you don't have to. SlapActionJackson fucked around with this message at 05:29 on May 26, 2016 |
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May 26, 2016 05:27
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My company holds billions in commercial mortgages and we hold/pay escrow on the majority of them. One of my coworkers use to work in the mortgage arm of the company, she said the escrow reconciliations were a hassle and she had little faith in them occuring entirely correctly. When I was doing our investment and REO accounting, one of the REO's was a lease-to-buy type of thing (once LTV + owner cash = 80%, we refi'd him into a mortgage vs a lease to buy?) where we received and paid escrow. When I started, it was a few grand off and our asset manager didn't give two shits. I got it straightened out, but my goodness, what a hassle. Half the hassle was the drat asset manager, the dude wouldn't take action in time, so we kept withdrawing the wrong amount for months. We had to do two separate true up's, one before the escrow adjustment happened and one after... Pain! Moral of the story: Track and reconcile your escrow balances.
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May 26, 2016 05:27
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SlapActionJackson posted:escrow waiver fee SiGmA_X posted:When I started, it was a few grand off and our asset manager didn't give two shits. I got it straightened out, but my goodness, what a hassle.
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May 26, 2016 05:35
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Some lenders don't care if you escrow or not. The credit union I used didn't care. Most banks care they must get a fee from the escrow company. If interest rates were higher I would care but the interest I would earn wouldn't pay for the three stamps a year to mail in the tax payments and insurance.
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May 26, 2016 13:47
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I'd like some honest opinions from people who have way more experience with this than myself. I've done a good amount of research online but I tend to value personal opinions and experiences over general articles online...some quick bullet points: *Lease is up January 2017, we plan to get a house by then *I (30) and Wife (31) are eager to start a family and feel time is running out (I'd like to have two kids by the time she's 35) *We currently have 25k saved for a house, will likely have 30-35k by January (maybe even more, depending on how much work wife gets) *I make ~100k (So after taxes we're looking at ~5.5k per month), she makes about 20k. So annual income is about 120k. *Location where we are looking is unfortunately in a strong buyer's market and likely will not change (Beaverton, OR). *Based upon calculations I am looking at ~275k for a mortgage and absolutely nothing more than 300k (It would take a hell of an opportunity to even think of that), with 10% down and an unfortunate PMI (Again, worried it may be rushing because of our desire to start a family). *I fear that trying to get 20% saved (another 30k or so) will cause us to be too late. *Credit scores are excellent, we're both ~720-740. Is getting a house the smart thing to do? I grew up fairly poor and lived in apartment to apartment so owning a house and a family has been something I've yearned for as a kid, but I'm worried it's clouding my judgment. I think my budget is pretty spot on at ~275k for a mortgage, with a PMI we're looking at about 1500-1700 dollars a month after all the fees, which is within what we can afford. Expenses are not too bad...we were spending way more than we should have been, but we've been very successful with budgeting towards a house lately. The big one is 650 dollar student loan, but no car payments or anything of the sort. Please, be as blunt as possible, I want constructive criticism. Kirios fucked around with this message at 23:09 on May 26, 2016 |
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May 26, 2016 23:07
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Alereon posted:Just to be clear, you're talking about pre-1976 mobile homes, not modern manufactured homes, right? I've read a lot about financing difficulties for manufactured homes but as far as I can tell that really only actually applies to homes on rented lots, especially park models that can't even be placed on their own land. At least in my area manufactured homes seem to be bought and sold just like stick-built homes of comparable quality and value (in the "how good of a deal is this house" sense of the word value). There may be some areas where this doesn't apply, and modular homes can also have some different elements at work, but for most part, all manufactured homes get a black eye. I can tell you if we get an appraisal that uses a manufactured home as a comparable for a house we are trying to determine value on, we send it back to the appraiser and make them take the manufactured home out. They are just seen as an inferior form of collateral, though as always, mileage may vary.
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May 26, 2016 23:27
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Kirios posted:Please, be as blunt as possible, I want constructive criticism. My concern for people who want to buy a home to start a family, is it can be tough to understand how many expenses you have as a homeowner that you don't get as a tenant. Maintenance can be expensive and if you are looking at having children shortly there after, babies add expenses that were not part of your life as a tenant either. Couple that with the fact that your wife's income may not be as steady in the period after childbirth (understandably so) and all the sudden you have rising expenses and declining income. Can you not rent and start a family? I am guessing there are houses for rent in your area that would let you do the whole "house and family" thing without taking out a 275k mortgage.
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May 26, 2016 23:31
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On the other hand, her income is very low while his is high (puts them in the 25% bracket), so the child tax credit could probably offset a couple months of unpaid absence. Not that you don't give good points, but in this situation declined income isn't necessarily a big thing.
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May 26, 2016 23:43
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Kirios posted:I'd like some honest opinions from people who have way more experience with this than myself. I've done a good amount of research online but I tend to value personal opinions and experiences over general articles online...some quick bullet points: Start going to open houses now and see if there is even anything in your price range that you would want, that seems pretty low for the PNW (though I don't live there, so I dunno). Don't forget that you'll also need to lay out $5-10k+ at / before closing in inspection and closing cost stuff.
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May 26, 2016 23:46
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Kirios posted:I'd like some honest opinions from people who have way more experience with this than myself. I've done a good amount of research online but I tend to value personal opinions and experiences over general articles online...some quick bullet points: Once you have a house and a kid you will have two huge expenses you don't currently have so make sure you plan to be extra thrifty. I would compare rents to a mortgage and use very conservative numbers with everything. It's possible to have a family while renting so I would make a plan for that and keep your eyes open for opportunities. Have a kid but don't rush in to a house just to do so. If you want to look at it from a taxes standpoint he will also get the tax credit for the mortgage. The numbers could work out depending on rents, just don't jump in to this with all your savings. lightpole fucked around with this message at 00:11 on May 27, 2016 |
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May 27, 2016 00:08
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For what it's worth she would be a stay at home mom (and I want her to be that). We are already starting the open house circuit and I'm talking her into the idea of maybe going the corner townhouse route instead of a house...it's just difficult. This is something I've wanted my whole life and now that it's close to happening it's becoming really stressful. Yeah, 250-300k isn't that high for the PNW but it's enough to be in decent area in Beaverton, which is one of the nicer parts of the Portland area. It's another another reason why a townhouse may not be a bad idea....gets us closer to a MAX line and in a nicer area.
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May 27, 2016 00:11
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Use Redfin to find houses around your price range. If you see one you like, favorite it and see what it sells for in a month. I live in Aloha and our house that we bought for $253k in 2013 just appraised for $320k. I like to keep an eye on the neighborhood house sales and I am seeing some real junkers go for way more than they probably should have. The market is crazy here once again and now is a super bad time to enter the market. Maybe talk to your credit union/bank about prequalifying. Double check your credit. Banks seem to consider 760+ to be in the "Excellent" category. I can recommend a realtor if you want. Other costs to consider when doing your monthly budgeting that you may not be paying now: garbage service, water/sewer, natural gas. Electricity will probably be higher than an apartment. You'll be on the hook for repairs and maintenance. There's a lot of little things like getting a lawn mower and stuff that is easy to overlook when running your numbers.
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May 27, 2016 00:18
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Do you envision the market in the area dying in the next 12-24 months? I honestly don't see it happening.
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May 27, 2016 00:20
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Kirios posted:For what it's worth she would be a stay at home mom (and I want her to be that). We are already starting the open house circuit and I'm talking her into the idea of maybe going the corner townhouse route instead of a house...it's just difficult. This is something I've wanted my whole life and now that it's close to happening it's becoming really stressful. Yeah, 250-300k isn't that high for the PNW but it's enough to be in decent area in Beaverton, which is one of the nicer parts of the Portland area. It's another another reason why a townhouse may not be a bad idea....gets us closer to a MAX line and in a nicer area. Don't buy a townhouse. You'll have HOAs to deal with and your neighbors might wake your baby up, plus it's hard to child-proof. You'll hear your neighbor's smoke detector go off even in well-insulated units. If you hate it, you still have to stay there for years before you're in a position to sell, and it's harder to sell a townhouse. Rent a house for the baby's first year or two or three, while saving aggressively for your own house. This way, you have the freedom to move in case your baby ends up being more expensive than you expected, but you also get to live in a house.
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May 27, 2016 00:27
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Kirios posted:I'd like some honest opinions from people who have way more experience with this than myself. I've done a good amount of research online but I tend to value personal opinions and experiences over general articles online...some quick bullet points: Purchasing a home prematurely, and then running into a major expense or being forced to sell early is much worse than waiting too long financially. If you purchase a home with 10% down and have the sellers cover most of the closing costs it still leaves you with next to zero emergency fund. If you are planning on living in the same place for 10+ years, waiting 1 year won't matter, but if you buy then sell then buy another home you are losing a lot of money. It sounds like you have the lifestyle stuff figured out and you know what you want. For myself I looked over the last 3 months of all of my receipts and spending to see where my money was going and made a realistic budget. I was spending a lot of money eating out and on gifts for wedings, birthdays, baby showers that I would not have expected. Over $100 a month on gifts between family and friends, about half around christmas time. Seeing where the money is going is pretty big. Then being able to choose between 20% down to avoid PMI or being "forced" into paying it will be an easier decision. How much are you paying in rent now?
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May 27, 2016 00:32
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About 1400 a month, and I've already figured out where most of our money went (eating out, games predominantly). We're actually saving close to 2000 a month with a hard limit on eating out (she picks 2, I pick 2 per month) and a 30 dollar limit on games for myself a month. They may be strict, but it's amazing how fast one can pay down a credit card, for example.
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May 27, 2016 00:35
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Kirios posted:For what it's worth she would be a stay at home mom (and I want her to be that). We are already starting the open house circuit and I'm talking her into the idea of maybe going the corner townhouse route instead of a house...it's just difficult. This is something I've wanted my whole life and now that it's close to happening it's becoming really stressful. Yeah, 250-300k isn't that high for the PNW but it's enough to be in decent area in Beaverton, which is one of the nicer parts of the Portland area. It's another another reason why a townhouse may not be a bad idea....gets us closer to a MAX line and in a nicer area. Make a comprehensive budget. Figure out all of your expenses. Make sure that you budget for savings, too! You shouldn't sacrifice your ability to save just to buy a house Then figure out how much it'll cost to have 2 kids. Lots of calculators for this stuff, some of them are pretty dumb Then figure out how much it'll cost you per month to buy a house with only ~5%-10% down. Maybe come here with your estimates to see if we can point out anything that you may have forgotten Check the rental market to see if you can have a house without buying. That can be a good option when you don't have much down payment. Consider whether you actually need a house in order to have kids. Most people don't. If you can approximate your expenses post-children and think that your savings will continue to grow, then financially you might be better off waiting a few years to buy, but you could totally still have kids in the meantime if that's important to you. You can probably afford to buy a house but 10% down is pretty rough.
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May 27, 2016 00:37
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Do you have any debts?
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May 27, 2016 00:38
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The credit card, which we currently have, is expected to be paid off by the time we pre approve. The big debt is my student loan, which is sitting at 18k, and will be paid off by 2019. Based upon calculators I've seen online, 300k house with 10% down and ~3.6% Interest will cost me ~1700 dollars after taxes, PMI, etc. I know that's something we can easily afford, but the question is whether it's right to do it now or not.
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May 27, 2016 00:41
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No idea if any of your area credit unions offer it but I was able to get a 10% down with no PMI from mine. They also don't ever sell the loan and don't do escrow, credit unions own.
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May 27, 2016 00:42
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Isn't Portland metro one of the few areas where there's such a giant number of people moving to a small area that renting for a few years is a bad idea, due to likely price increases both in rent as well as housing stock?
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May 27, 2016 00:49
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Welp, we're under contract as of today. Excited to be really poor in a month or whatever. How do you manage to buy a house while also working full time? I'm fortunate that my employer is very forgiving about me needing to take conference calls with mortgage providers in the middle of the day / work remotely for an afternoon so I can go to a showing or inspection / not do any work for an hour because I have all this paperwork that needs doing NOW, how do people in less-flexible jobs even manage it?
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May 27, 2016 00:59
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mastershakeman posted:Isn't Portland metro one of the few areas where there's such a giant number of people moving to a small area that renting for a few years is a bad idea, due to likely price increases both in rent as well as housing stock? Correct, renting isn't the smartest thing to do...the prevailing thought is to buy a house as soon as possible, even in not ideal circumstances, due to how rapidly growing the market is (We're talking 15% increases year over year...it's insane)
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May 27, 2016 01:02
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legendof posted:Welp, we're under contract as of today. Excited to be really poor in a month or whatever. How do you manage to buy a house while also working full time? I'm fortunate that my employer is very forgiving about me needing to take conference calls with mortgage providers in the middle of the day / work remotely for an afternoon so I can go to a showing or inspection / not do any work for an hour because I have all this paperwork that needs doing NOW, how do people in less-flexible jobs even manage it? Honestly, I have no loving clue. I toke serious advantage of my employer's flexibility and probably wasted close to an entire work week with all the BS involved with house purchasing. My partner had trouble getting off for our closing, he eventually told them to just deal with him being gone that day.
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May 27, 2016 01:17
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legendof posted:Welp, we're under contract as of today. Excited to be really poor in a month or whatever. How do you manage to buy a house while also working full time? I'm fortunate that my employer is very forgiving about me needing to take conference calls with mortgage providers in the middle of the day / work remotely for an afternoon so I can go to a showing or inspection / not do any work for an hour because I have all this paperwork that needs doing NOW, how do people in less-flexible jobs even manage it? Weekends and active agents.
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May 27, 2016 01:18
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Kirios posted:The credit card, which we currently have, is expected to be paid off by the time we pre approve. The big debt is my student loan, which is sitting at 18k, and will be paid off by 2019. Be careful, those calculators usually leave off HOA fees (if you have those) and home insurance (not the same as PMI). It definitely doesn't include maintenance, which you need to budget for. Those calculators also often gently caress up the property tax rate, they'll use some random percentage instead of whatever the actual rate is. In my area it's always an overestimate but ymmv. They also don't account for exemptions, if you're eligible for those You also need to account for utilities, which can be a difference of up to a couple hundred depending on which utilities are covered while you rent (when I rented I only ever paid for electricity and Internet). Don't forget that you're heating / cooling a larger volume, too. Will you be doing yard york?
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May 27, 2016 01:24
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Kirios posted:Correct, renting isn't the smartest thing to do...the prevailing thought is to buy a house as soon as possible, even in not ideal circumstances, due to how rapidly growing the market is (We're talking 15% increases year over year...it's insane) Maybe, but it could also be a bubble. Would you be okay with that? If your primary motivation is not financial then it shouldn't matter. Don't get too hung up on trying to take advantage of the market
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May 27, 2016 01:30
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Remember, people were spreading the "you'd be crazy not to buy right now" bullshit right up until the day of the housing collapse, and many continued parroting that sentiment even while prices were crashing hard. People will be telling you to buy regardless of whether it's actually a good idea; they might be right, but most people just have no idea
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May 27, 2016 01:34
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QuarkJets posted:Remember, people were spreading the "you'd be crazy not to buy right now" bullshit right up until the day of the housing collapse, and many continued parroting that sentiment even while prices were crashing hard. People will be telling you to buy regardless of whether it's actually a good idea; they might be right, but most people just have no idea Just do median wage to median price comparison. If there's a large divergence from past trends, pinpoint why. The divergence can't be too large, at some point people won't be able to leverage anymore and the market will top out like it did in 2009. I am extremely unhappy with every asset class right now. I'm not understanding these prices and market expectations.
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May 27, 2016 01:43
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Well, I've made an offer on a house today. Somebody kick me. It's a very nice place, though. When I walked thru it the other day everything was in great condition. I literally could not find a single thing that I thought needed repair. Not even so much as a paint job for a bedroom. There was even that new carpet smell when I walked in. But it has its downsides. There is no garage, and the driveway is not paved. Going to be annoying in the winter time. So, anyway, a few questions I have- - I offered to pay full price for the place as long as the sellers cover closing costs up to $3000. Should I have asked for more? - I'm prepared to make the full 20% down payment, but that would leave me with precious little in my savings. I would still have enough for emergency car repairs or anything that would require immediate attention, but not enough to really breathe easy for the next 3-4 months. Would it be worth putting less down for a bigger safety pillow of savings? I really don't want to pay PMI fees, but I will grudgingly do so if it's in my best interest. - How much would it cost to have a roughly 50-75 ft. driveway paved in asphalt? Shoveling a dirt driveway sounds like a pain in the rear end and if it's cheap enough I would like to get that sucker paved before winter kicks in. (I live in Michigan- it will snow) Or is shoveling a dirt driveway not as tough as I think it is?
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May 27, 2016 02:05
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I would rather pay PMI with 85% ltv than have absolutely no savings left. You shouldn't ever dump all of your savings unless you really have no choice, and a house purchase just doesn't qualify
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May 27, 2016 02:14
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Vinny the Shark posted:- How much would it cost to have a roughly 50-75 ft. driveway paved in asphalt? Shoveling a dirt driveway sounds like a pain in the rear end and if it's cheap enough I would like to get that sucker paved before winter kicks in. (I live in Michigan- it will snow) Or is shoveling a dirt driveway not as tough as I think it is? In WI, it cost $2k to pave a roughly 60-foot driveway (12 feet wide) in concrete. Shoveling a dirt driveway isn't too bad because the ground freezes solid. But a dirt driveway really sucks when it rains or the snow starts melting. Get it paved before your rainy season.
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May 27, 2016 02:47
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Kirios posted:The credit card, which we currently have, is expected to be paid off by the time we pre approve. The big debt is my student loan, which is sitting at 18k, and will be paid off by 2019. You really, really need a budget. The reason people are asking for a budget is because: 1) you're going to need one anyway to ensure that you can actually live in the house long term. 2) they can't tell if you have an appropriate emergency fund 3) they can't tell if you have a high savings rate I'm going to make a wild assed guess here and assume that you have a savings rate of ~1k/month, which means you have expenses of ~5.5k per month. For 1), your savings rate is going to drop by ~1k when your wife stops working. You are going to have substantially more expenses because you now own a house (and first time home owners have much more expense in the first few years) and because you're planning on having a kid, probably ~1 year after moving in, which will also increase expenses. Those numbers do not work out long term, and you need to either decrease your typical expenses (and the sooner the better) or you need to make more money. For 2), your savings is ~4 months of current expenses, but that will go down when you buy a house to ~3 months of expenses. That isn't enough of an emergency fund when you have a family depending on you, and that is before your down payment! Most divorces occur because of financial trouble - don't set yours up with trouble from the start. Also, get life insurance if you don't already have it, you are the primary support. For 3), I would say no, assuming you are only saving 1k/month. Change all of that to a savings rate of 2k/month and you might be scraping by. Personally I would not buy in your position. I would shoot for 50k in the bank minimum prior to buying a house like that on your income. Also, we just had a kid and bought a house. The first thing we did when we moved in was block off a bunch of the house. There is nothing wrong with buying a house when your hypothetical offspring is 6 months old or more - there will be absolutely no diference to them. If this sounds harsh I don't intend it that way, I wish you luck. Please be careful though!
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May 27, 2016 13:21
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moana posted:It's a closing/escrow fee, not money to be put in escrow. I'm going to ask the lender to cover it, as they're the one bugging me to do the refinance. Just wondering if I'm being nitpicky over $500.
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May 27, 2016 15:14
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QuarkJets posted:I would rather pay PMI with 85% ltv than have absolutely no savings left. You shouldn't ever dump all of your savings unless you really have no choice, and a house purchase just doesn't qualify I did it this way, but made aggressive overpayments to get under 80% ltv so I could get the PMI removed early. It was such a pain in the rear end dealing with my mortgage company that I wish I had stretched more up front. I had plenty of cheap credit available if needed though, ymmv.
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May 27, 2016 15:18
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