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hatty
Feb 28, 2011

Pork Pro
Probably a strange question but my mom is selling her house as is and she got a decent offer right below asking which she was happy with. All was going smoothly but the inspector noted some mild water damage right outside the shower. no big deal, buyers called in a mold man to take a look at it. Now heres the strange part, the mold guy comes today to take a look and get samples etc but he says to me that the damage is nothing compared to what the buyers described. They mentioned stuff like stains in ceiling below the shower and massive wall damage but the spot just covers probably 4 square inches of the wall just blatantly false stuff. What would they have to gain from exaggerating to the mold guy like that? Like exaggerating to me or my mom I get but why to the guy that actually knows what he’s looking at?

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Shifty Pony
Dec 28, 2004

Up ta somethin'


They might have been signaling to the mold inspector that they wanted a high quote to use as a negotiating tool.

Or they could be one of those people that freaks out and catastrophizes about mold.

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

Shifty Pony posted:

They might have been signaling to the mold inspector that they wanted a high quote to use as a negotiating tool.

Or they could be one of those people that freaks out and catastrophizes about mold.

The house is being sold "as is". If they're coming back to negotiate it's in bad faith because there is no negotiation. It's a take it or leave it.

hatty
Feb 28, 2011

Pork Pro
she already gave them a $5,000 adjustment after the inspector came through and gave his report. Their agent sent the report to ours despite her explicitly saying she didn't want a copy for obvious reasons, it was only 33 pages which seems pretty good for a 20 year old house imo. Only real standout was that water stain and the upstairs carpet is pretty terrible. These buyers seem sketchy to me I dunno. Their option period ends tomorrow so I guess I'll see if they try to screw my mom over

Arsenic Lupin
Apr 12, 2012

This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.


El Mero Mero posted:

So there's this place that's been under construction for years outside of a hiking trail I go to. The house is basically being build on a steep gully in the hairpin of a road with hillside above the hairpin.



Anyhow the sale history on this place sure tells a story:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/7087-Skyline-Blvd-Oakland-CA-94611/299071357_zpid/
Oh, yes, I definitely want to own a half-built house in the Oakland Hills surrounded by eucalyptus and on winding winding roads.

25 Years Later: Oakland hills ripe for another firestorm
The Oakland Hills firestorm.

El Mero Mero
Oct 13, 2001

Arsenic Lupin posted:

Oh, yes, I definitely want to own a half-built house in the Oakland Hills surrounded by eucalyptus and on winding winding roads.

25 Years Later: Oakland hills ripe for another firestorm
The Oakland Hills firestorm.

Seriously. It's the worst of every possible world actually since it's:

1. On a steep wooded hillside with no great way in or out (fires)
2. inside the ravine entrance at the bottom of hills on the other side of the road (floods)
3. Below a bunch of steep hills (earthquake slides/mudslides)

Sundae
Dec 1, 2005

daslog posted:

Multi generational home owner here. We bought this house a few years ago because it's a legal two family and we wanted space for my ailing father in law. We actually ended up with my daughter in law living here for a while and now the oldest grandchild. I couldn't be happier with how it worked out.

There should be more places like this but NIMBYISM holds everything back.

We had a multigenerational house on Long Island but the nimbyism really was a pain in the rear end. Village code banned multi-family dwellings in most of the town, so you weren’t allowed to have any separation or conveniences that would’ve made it work. No second kitchens, no doors separating parts of the house, limits to what bathrooms were allowed, etc. It really, really sucked to have 9 people in effectively a 2br, and since the village knew what we were doing, they kept showing up to inspect that we hadn’t done anything like put doors up.

That’s not even getting into the grandparent generation doing “MY HOUSE MY RULES” on both generations below them. I was 24 and banned from having girls over or beer in the fridge, my mother (working in the city) kept getting chastised for not being home by 5:30 for dinner, so on and so forth.

NIMBYism and complete disregard for give-and-take kills the idea for me. It was unworkable and I ended up moving out.

Sublimer
Sep 20, 2007
get yo' game up


Selling my previous house and after about 2 months of being on market I got a lowball offer. I countered at pretty close to asking price and they basically verbally accepted through our realtor in a structure that I’m not familiar with so I wanted to post here. My counter was 270k and they’ve offered 300k with 30k back for updates/repairs/closing costs. Apparently it’s a VA loan and they want to do it this way because they don’t have the money on hand to make the upgrades themselves. If it doesn’t appraise, I won’t be required to sell at the lower price point. It also seems likely that we could make it a “sliding scale” so if the house appraises for 295k, they’d get 25k back instead.

Unless I’m missing something this seems better than if they’d just accepted my counter of 270k outright because in that case I’d probably be asked to make some concessions for repairs after inspection and this way they’ll have the money to do that themselves. Only drawback is I believe I’ll be paying the 6% realtor fee on 300k instead of 270k but honestly my realtor has been great to work with so far so whatever.

PerniciousKnid
Sep 13, 2006
My wife wants to buy a new house oh gently caress oh poo poo I hate my house but I hate this process too but this perfect house just came on the market and we've been talking about moving for a while.

More seriously, I'm trying to budget while taking into account that I have a house to sell that is somewhat unique (next to a flooding creek and railroad tracks), so I'm not sure how to budget but obviously there's no way I can consider a new house without factoring a sale and probably a bridge loan because I have small kids and we'll definitely need to hang onto the old house for a few months to empty it and fix all the damage I've done to it. Most home buying advice is geared toward first-time purchases, anybody have advice about bridge loans or how to estimate sale price realistically?

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

PerniciousKnid posted:

My wife wants to buy a new house oh gently caress oh poo poo I hate my house but I hate this process too but this perfect house just came on the market and we've been talking about moving for a while.

More seriously, I'm trying to budget while taking into account that I have a house to sell that is somewhat unique (next to a flooding creek and railroad tracks), so I'm not sure how to budget but obviously there's no way I can consider a new house without factoring a sale and probably a bridge loan because I have small kids and we'll definitely need to hang onto the old house for a few months to empty it and fix all the damage I've done to it. Most home buying advice is geared toward first-time purchases, anybody have advice about bridge loans or how to estimate sale price realistically?

As presented, this sounds more like dreaming/setting yourself up for failure than a thing some tactical advice can help with.

What it your current house worth right now? Zillow/Redfin estimates are probably close enough for now.
How much do you owe on your current mortgage and what is it's APR?
What is your income?
Do you have any other debts (cars, credit cards)?
What is your credit rating?
How much does this new house cost?
What kind of "damage" are you talking about? Specifically. And how much do you think it will cost to repair? Because bridge loans aren't cheap, and potentially not available to you depending on the answers to some of the above, and it's likely cheaper to not fix the damage or pay someone to do so and be inconvenienced/move things into a POD temporarily.

Rabidbunnylover
Feb 26, 2006
d567c8526b5b0e

Sublimer posted:

Selling my previous house and after about 2 months of being on market I got a lowball offer. I countered at pretty close to asking price and they basically verbally accepted through our realtor in a structure that I’m not familiar with so I wanted to post here. My counter was 270k and they’ve offered 300k with 30k back for updates/repairs/closing costs. Apparently it’s a VA loan and they want to do it this way because they don’t have the money on hand to make the upgrades themselves. If it doesn’t appraise, I won’t be required to sell at the lower price point. It also seems likely that we could make it a “sliding scale” so if the house appraises for 295k, they’d get 25k back instead.

Unless I’m missing something this seems better than if they’d just accepted my counter of 270k outright because in that case I’d probably be asked to make some concessions for repairs after inspection and this way they’ll have the money to do that themselves. Only drawback is I believe I’ll be paying the 6% realtor fee on 300k instead of 270k but honestly my realtor has been great to work with so far so whatever.

Not super familiar with VA loans, but the big risk I see is just that they get into "one weird trick" territory with their lender, end up not being able to close the loan, use the finance contingency to back out, and you end up in the same place you are now, a month down the line, and with a note on the MLS that it fell out of contingency.

I think the big questions I'd have for either a real estate agent who's super experienced with VA loans or a real estate lawyer are:
1. Does that strategy actually work with the VA loan? (Online it looks like there may be a cap of 4% for credits, although unclear if that includes repair credits)
2. Is there some way to derisk this before you actually go into contingency? For example, can they get their lender to commit in pre-approval to this plan in some way, or can you structure the financing/appraisal contingency to protect you from this risk?

PerniciousKnid
Sep 13, 2006

Motronic posted:

As presented, this sounds more like dreaming/setting yourself up for failure than a thing some tactical advice can help with.

What it your current house worth right now? Zillow/Redfin estimates are probably close enough for now.
How much do you owe on your current mortgage and what is it's APR?
What is your income?
Do you have any other debts (cars, credit cards)?
What is your credit rating?
How much does this new house cost?
What kind of "damage" are you talking about? Specifically. And how much do you think it will cost to repair? Because bridge loans aren't cheap, and potentially not available to you depending on the answers to some of the above, and it's likely cheaper to not fix the damage or pay someone to do so and be inconvenienced/move things into a POD temporarily.

The current house is paid off, we don't have any debts, and a good credit score. The damage is really just drywall stuff from water seeping into the basement last year, we had to saw off the bottom few feet and haven't yet replaced it. The landscaping is a mess but we probably will just leave it? There's holes in the walls, some of the colors and wallpaper are bad, etc. The other thing is the creek adjacent, and also when it rains heavily the water comes up to the foundation, although that hasn't directly caused any water issues in our 9 years. I think I need to talk to a lawyer about how to disclose that without making it sound worse than it is.

The Zestimate for the new house is about 50% more than for my old house. If I liquidate my index funds for the down payment then my Max Purchase Budget (via Bankrate) is just about enough to buy the new house, I'll have to figure out taxes and stuff to see if I need an 80-10-10 or something like that. The problem is that I would have no savings (excluding 401k etc.) until the old house is sold, and because of its unique water feature I'm unsure how much we'll actually get for it, compared to what the agents/Zillow think. Or if something goes wrong and we can't sell it or something, the new mortgage might be unaffordable long-term.

Anyway I'm very stressed because I feel like there's a lot of uncertainty, but I also hate my house for some of those same reasons so I would love to move, but my neighborhood that I love is too drat expensive since the 2020 inflation. In theory I'll sell my house for what Zillow thinks it's worth, and be left with a small mortgage, or maybe no mortgage.

Also I just found out the survey on the new house turned up an encroachment, so gonna get more info on that!

PerniciousKnid fucked around with this message at 20:07 on Nov 15, 2023

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

PerniciousKnid posted:

If I liquidate my index funds for the down payment then my Max Purchase Budget (via Bankrate) is just about enough to buy the new house

I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, but that means you can't afford the new house.

PerniciousKnid
Sep 13, 2006

Motronic posted:

I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, but that means you can't afford the new house.

Just to be clear, if I sell my current house for the zestimate and use my savings I can pretty much pay cash for the new house, or maybe carry a small mortgage to maintain some extra liquidity. My concerns are the interim financing, and that I'm not super confident about selling my old house. Somewhat because the numbers are so big that if I don't sell my new house or take a haircut then I am left with a significant mortgage. If the situation was 80k in savings, a 100k old house and I was buying a 180k new house then I wouldn't sweat it, but add a zero to everything and things could go horribly wrong if the estimates miss, even though it still adds up in theory.

House-buying thread: Sorry I guess I don't really have a question, I just needed to have a quick panic attack.

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

Keep in mind for the bridge loan etc that between now and Superbowl Sunday in February (Feb 11), the market is dead. So you'll need a loan at least that long. On the plus side you have three months to move and get the house staged

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

PerniciousKnid posted:

Just to be clear, if I sell my current house for the zestimate and use my savings I can pretty much pay cash for the new house

Okay, that's a lot different than what I took from this: that you would need the value of your old home plus all of your investments to make the down payment on the new home. That's seriously dangerous territory, as opposed to your situation.

I don't see the problem. You HELOC the existing house or you cash out equity to both repair the old house and for a down payment on the new one. Or a combination of both. You're not going to be cash poor, you just need to decide which one of those two is more tax advantageous and that depends entirely on your investments/their capital gains/your income. Either way your DTI needs to be considered for the combination of loans, but this would be the same with any type of debt funding.

I don't see why you would want a bridge loan in this situation. You have an asset to secure the funding against and a much more common loan product to use to access the equity which will not put you on a strict timetable.

PerniciousKnid
Sep 13, 2006

Motronic posted:

Okay, that's a lot different than what I took from this: that you would need the value of your old home plus all of your investments to make the down payment on the new home. That's seriously dangerous territory, as opposed to your situation.

I don't see the problem. You HELOC the existing house or you cash out equity to both repair the old house and for a down payment on the new one. Or a combination of both. You're not going to be cash poor, you just need to decide which one of those two is more tax advantageous and that depends entirely on your investments/their capital gains/your income. Either way your DTI needs to be considered for the combination of loans, but this would be the same with any type of debt funding.

I don't see why you would want a bridge loan in this situation. You have an asset to secure the funding against and a much more common loan product to use to access the equity which will not put you on a strict timetable.

The way it was explained to me, a bridge loan is for exactly this situation. I thought I read somewhere that you can't sell a house with a HEL or HELOC on it, was that incorrect (or misinterpreted by me)?

Regarding DTI, I expect to net from selling my current home about 4x my annual income, so any loan I take to replace that amount in the short term will have a high DTI, although obviously I am hoping it will only be for a few months and I can pay it off or refinance it.

Hadlock posted:

Keep in mind for the bridge loan etc that between now and Superbowl Sunday in February (Feb 11), the market is dead. So you'll need a loan at least that long. On the plus side you have three months to move and get the house staged

The timing is actually perfect, I think, because between having small kids and my wife's anxiety/OCD, it'll take us a few months to arrange our old house for sale. Honestly I think we'll have to hustle to pull that off.

(The housing market is crazy so it's entirely likely that someone will bid 120% list price and this will all be irrelevant anyway, I don't know if that is comforting to me or not. I hate houses, I wish I could just rent an apartment and make my kids sleep in a chest of drawers like Kramer's Japanese business partners.)

Edit: Thanks for the advice so far, it's given me something to think about. Plus it's been helpful just to put thoughts into words instead of pacing around the office.

PerniciousKnid fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Nov 15, 2023

SlapActionJackson
Jul 27, 2006

PerniciousKnid posted:

The way it was explained to me, a bridge loan is for exactly this situation. I thought I read somewhere that you can't sell a house with a HEL or HELOC on it, was that incorrect (or misinterpreted by me)?

The HEL(OC) gets paid off at closing with the sale proceeds. It is totally unremarkable to sell a property with open loans.

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

PerniciousKnid posted:


(The housing market is crazy so it's entirely likely that someone will bid 120% list price and this will all be irrelevant anyway, I don't know if that is comforting to me or not.

You mentioned it's in a potential flood zone + near railroad track. I don't know the details but no offense I'd temper expectations. Zillow "zestimates" often don't take these things into account. I would budget getting 90% of the zestimate for now, maybe even as low as 85%. The price spread between our houses original ask vs what we paid for it was around 10% as an example

PerniciousKnid
Sep 13, 2006

Hadlock posted:

You mentioned it's in a potential flood zone + near railroad track. I don't know the details but no offense I'd temper expectations. Zillow "zestimates" often don't take these things into account. I would budget getting 90% of the zestimate for now, maybe even as low as 85%. The price spread between our houses original ask vs what we paid for it was around 10% as an example

Yeah I have been factoring that in, although the agents I talked to shrugged it off. On the other hand, it's also a large plot and secluded, so it has some unique appeal (which is why we bought it in the first place, before I realized I don't have time to go outside).

SlapActionJackson posted:

The HEL(OC) gets paid off at closing with the sale proceeds. It is totally unremarkable to sell a property with open loans.

Follow-up question, I'm currently getting pre-approved for a mortgage for the purpose of making an offer by Monday, but who the hell is best to talk to for figuring out the best mix of selling investments vs HELOC vs mortgage? I guess a financial advisor, assuming it's worth the cost, but is there anything specific I should keep in mind when looking for someone or what questions to ask?

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

PerniciousKnid posted:

Yeah I have been factoring that in, although the agents I talked to shrugged it off.

That's typical. They want your business because they get 2.5% of the sale. If they think that you think you'll get 105% because it's secluded of the sale price the next words out of their mouth are going to be "yeah I can get you at least 115% of the sale price because it's so [X, Y, Z]"

Trust your listing agent less than a used car salesperson. Doubly so in this sales climate where properties are so hard to come by. Just be wary, and realistic.

You can view recently sold/comparable properties using Zillow, as well as see their listing history (did they sell at/under/over ask? How long was it on the market? Did they lower the price? How much?) Etc going back to at least 2001 in most cases. Don't trust the agent to have any idea of what the unit will list for or that they're willing to do that much research. Zoom out on Zillow and look at every property within a half mile that looks similar

TL;DR see thead title

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

PerniciousKnid posted:

Follow-up question, I'm currently getting pre-approved for a mortgage for the purpose of making an offer by Monday, but who the hell is best to talk to for figuring out the best mix of selling investments vs HELOC vs mortgage? I guess a financial advisor, assuming it's worth the cost, but is there anything specific I should keep in mind when looking for someone or what questions to ask?

You can't get ANY new financing, not even open a credit card, between the time you are getting mortgage approval and closing or you will blow up the deal. Your mortgage broker will tell you that.

So if you're making an offer on Monday and need to start working on mortgage approval (not pre approval) shortly thereafter not only can't you take out a HELOC or bridge loan or any other type of credit after but it will complicate the entire process if you're then also moving large amount of money around via selling investments.

I'm not saying this can't be done, but it needs to be done in a specific order. You need to talk to a good independent broker that can get you both of these things and get money moved around the fewest amount of times so you have the least amount of paperwork to send to underwriting. Who are going to be confused and ask for more, and potentially the same thing multiple times as if they've never seen this very typical transaction before because <taps thread title>.

Red
Apr 15, 2003

Yeah, great at getting us into Wawa.
What does this mean for home buyers for the next year or so?: https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/15/opinions/nar-lawsuit-real-estate-commissions-brobeck/index.html

quote:

On October 31, a Kansas City, Missouri, jury ruled that the National Association of Realtors, or NAR, and several residential brokerages engaged in illegal price-fixing and awarded damages to Missouri home sellers that could total more than $5 billion. This decision has made it highly likely that in the future, the industry will no longer be able to charge 5% to 6% commission rates across the board.

What plaintiffs successfully challenged was the industry requirement that for a home to be listed on a local multiple listing service, sellers must offer compensation to buyer agents. That mandatory offer has allowed industry agents and brokers to collude by setting rates.

Homes listed below the going rate of 2.5% to 3% may not be shown by buyer agents. And buyers do not believe or see a reason that they can negotiate the rate down because they are told by their agents that sellers typically pay this expense. NAR has said it will appeal the verdict.

... continued in link...

Arsenic Lupin
Apr 12, 2012

This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.


Nothing, unless you're in the jurisdiction of the Federal United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri. Oh, other people will file the same class-action suits, no doubt. There's a similar lawsuit in the Northern District of Illinois expected to begin trial in "the first half of 2024." But a judicial ruling in one Federal court isn't legally binding on all sales within the same state, far less nationwide. In the mean time, this first decision will be appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. Then it will be appealed to the Supreme Court. None of this will finish happening in the years 2023-24.

The first pebble just got kicked down the hill. We are not going to see the landslide next year. We don't even know if more than a handful of pebbles will get kicked, or whether the National Association of Realtors will be using dollar bills to glue the hillside together.

disclaimer: ianal. Ask the legal advice thread if they think anything significant will happen within a year.

PerniciousKnid
Sep 13, 2006

Motronic posted:

You can't get ANY new financing, not even open a credit card, between the time you are getting mortgage approval and closing or you will blow up the deal. Your mortgage broker will tell you that.

So if you're making an offer on Monday and need to start working on mortgage approval (not pre approval) shortly thereafter not only can't you take out a HELOC or bridge loan or any other type of credit after but it will complicate the entire process if you're then also moving large amount of money around via selling investments.

I'm not saying this can't be done, but it needs to be done in a specific order. You need to talk to a good independent broker that can get you both of these things and get money moved around the fewest amount of times so you have the least amount of paperwork to send to underwriting. Who are going to be confused and ask for more, and potentially the same thing multiple times as if they've never seen this very typical transaction before because <taps thread title>.

Is there anything I need to keep in mind when looking for an "independent broker", is that different from a financial advisor, do I need to talk to a financial advisor and then an independent broker? Am I looking for a mortgage broker, can they also help me navigate HEL(OC)s and get both in whatever ratio makes sense, or am I shopping for someone else?

Unfortunately after having three kids I feel like the stupidest person involved in this process is me.

Zarin
Nov 11, 2008

I SEE YOU

PerniciousKnid posted:

Unfortunately after having three kids I feel like the stupidest person involved in this process is me.

Yes. Yes, you are.

Well, currently, anyway; you haven't really even gotten started yet, though.

Just wait until you meet everyone else that Motronic mentioned . . . oh, we have such wonderful sights to show you :unsmigghh:



Hadlock posted:

Trust your listing agent less than a used car salesperson.

This point literally CANNOT be overstated enough.

Zarin fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Nov 16, 2023

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

PerniciousKnid posted:

Is there anything I need to keep in mind when looking for an "independent broker", is that different from a financial advisor, do I need to talk to a financial advisor and then an independent broker? Am I looking for a mortgage broker, can they also help me navigate HEL(OC)s and get both in whatever ratio makes sense, or am I shopping for someone else?

I'm talking about an independent mortgage broker. It's unlikely you have time to find and meaningfully engage a financial advisor when your timeline is "making an offer on Monday". You'll need to do what you need to do and pay the taxman unless you are willing to sit down and spreadsheet this out yourself.

The most important part of shopping for a mortgage broker is using a google voice or other throwaway phone number as well as a throwaway email. Put your info into bankrate.com or similar and your phone will start ringing within minutes. These people are vultures.

Choose who you want to deal with based on whether you feel like you can work with them, ratings and reviews on bankrate or other sites, and just how much you feel like you need to take a shower after the first phone call. From your burner number.

Sublimer
Sep 20, 2007
get yo' game up


Rabidbunnylover posted:

Not super familiar with VA loans, but the big risk I see is just that they get into "one weird trick" territory with their lender, end up not being able to close the loan, use the finance contingency to back out, and you end up in the same place you are now, a month down the line, and with a note on the MLS that it fell out of contingency.

I think the big questions I'd have for either a real estate agent who's super experienced with VA loans or a real estate lawyer are:
1. Does that strategy actually work with the VA loan? (Online it looks like there may be a cap of 4% for credits, although unclear if that includes repair credits)
2. Is there some way to derisk this before you actually go into contingency? For example, can they get their lender to commit in pre-approval to this plan in some way, or can you structure the financing/appraisal contingency to protect you from this risk?

Thanks for this. I talked to my realtor and their lender is not aware of the structure of the deal.

To me this feels like the buyer is misrepresenting the deal to the lender which I would consider fraud but I’m not expert!! My realtor says this is pretty common and while an underwriter might not like it, it’s not illegal. I’m just trying to protect myself here.

I’m going to be talking to a lawyer and also the person from the title company when I bought my current house in the morning to get their take.

PerniciousKnid
Sep 13, 2006

Motronic posted:

I'm talking about an independent mortgage broker. It's unlikely you have time to find and meaningfully engage a financial advisor when your timeline is "making an offer on Monday". You'll need to do what you need to do and pay the taxman unless you are willing to sit down and spreadsheet this out yourself.

The most important part of shopping for a mortgage broker is using a google voice or other throwaway phone number as well as a throwaway email. Put your info into bankrate.com or similar and your phone will start ringing within minutes. These people are vultures.

Choose who you want to deal with based on whether you feel like you can work with them, ratings and reviews on bankrate or other sites, and just how much you feel like you need to take a shower after the first phone call. From your burner number.

Ok, thank you.

I think, if I figured out Vanguard's website, that I have very little in the way of capital gains relative to the balance, so the tax impact is probably pretty small (15% of 3% of the balance). So it seems like it's safe to liquidate the whole thing if needed. On average I think I make equal or less on my mutual funds than borrowing rate so on the surface it makes sense to fund from investments first.

My quick search of HEL rates seems like the rates are pretty high relative to mortgages. So I guess if there's any benefit to a HEL over a mortgage, it would be in lower closing costs (maybe?) and the ability to repay in a few months instead of 6+ months of payments required for a primary mortgage. Is that right?

Is there any reason transferring my mutual funds into a money market fund would throw up some kind of red flag? I'm thinking of doing that before the stock market crashes next week and invalidates my offer (assuming we like the house on Saturday).

PerniciousKnid fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Nov 16, 2023

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

PerniciousKnid posted:

My cursory search of HEL rates seems like the rates are pretty high relative to mortgages. So I guess if there's any benefit to a HEL over a larger mortgage, it would be in lower closing costs (maybe?) and the ability to repay in a few months instead of 6+ months of payments required for a primary mortgage.

Yes, the rates are higher. The origination fees are lower by far in my experience. For your use case this makes sense.

PerniciousKnid posted:

Is there any reason exchanging my mutual funds into a money market fund would throw up some kind of red flag? I'm thinking of doing that before the stock market crashes and invalidates my offer?

It's not going to throw up a red flag, but you will be asked about the transaction because underwriting is going to give you a 3 to 6 month deep colonoscopy, so keep these kinds of moves to a minimum. Absolutely, positively convert investment to cash/near cash (which your vanguard settlement fund is) before counting on their value in the short term. Just don't move them out of there. You can wire from your vanguard settlement fund or even write a check if you have signed up for that. That will be the least amount of moves to achieve closing, and that's the goal: move the money the least amount possible.

Beef Of Ages
Jan 11, 2003

Your dumb is leaking.

PerniciousKnid posted:

Is there any reason exchanging my mutual funds into a money market fund would throw up some kind of red flag? I'm thinking of doing that before the stock market crashes and invalidates my offer?

The financial implications of that approach aside (because I am not a financial expert), from a logistics standpoint as long as you do it before starting the mortgage process and can document the moves you make, underwriting will eventually be ok with that even though it is likely to take several rounds of submitting the same paperwork to get there.

Edit: beaten.

ist
Mar 9, 2007
lurkin since '01
Since there isn't a house-selling thread...

There's a 50/50 chance I'll be relocating for work and will need to sell my home late next spring or early summer. As the seller, is there any way for me to negotiate agent commissions to reduce the amount that I will be paying the buyer's agent?

I'm totally fine with paying 3% to the listing agent but paying 3% to the buyer's agent is just a bitter pill to swallow. Is it at all possible to do something like pay a 5% commission with a 3% listing/2% buyer agent split? Or even a 6% commission with a 4% listing/2% buyer agent split?

I'll probably be using the same agent to sell my home that I used to buy it, just wondering how taboo this topic is before I contact them.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

You can try to negotiate the fee with your agent, but it's your agent who then negotiates how much of that fee they will give to the buyer's agent, (almost?) always a 50/50 split. You can negotiate down from 6% to maybe 5%, some outfits like Redfin explicitly offer a discount in this way, but it's not your responsibility nor your right to directly negotiate fees with the buyer's agent. The buyer can potentially ask their agent for a rebate from the agent's fees, but that's not the same as the seller declaring the buyer's agent gets less on this sale than their own agent does.

You also do not really want to discourage your local buyers' agents from showing your house to their clients. Imagine if most of the houses they show their clients pay them X, but your house only pays them 2/3s X. Do you think they'll still be completely fair and impartial when they show your house, if they show it at all?

I'm also not sure why you are fine with paying your own agent but paying the other agent is a bitter pill to swallow: you benefitted directly from this arrangement when you bought your house, and the buyer's agent is doing work too? Of course the entire fee structure is part of the insanely flagrant price-fixing monopoly behavior by the national association of realtors and their powerful lobbying, but we are powerless to do anything about that.

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

Motronic posted:

It's not going to throw up a red flag, but you will be asked about the transaction because underwriting is going to give you a 3 to 6 month deep colonoscopy, so keep these kinds of moves to a minimum. Absolutely, positively convert investment to cash/near cash (which your vanguard settlement fund is) before counting on their value in the short term. Just don't move them out of there. You can wire from your vanguard settlement fund or even write a check if you have signed up for that. That will be the least amount of moves to achieve closing, and that's the goal: move the money the least amount possible.

This is good advice

Anything that isn't buying groceries or paying utility bills, try and avoid in the 65 days before you begin applying for mortgages. The underwriter WILL ask for documentation (usually just a statement from you, signed and dated) for any unusual (in particular cash) transactions. Opening new lines of credit, or accruing new CC debt 90 days before applying for a mortgage is super super sloppy don't do it

In my personal experience I have had zero questions on any funds more than 60 days before we applied for a mortgage

If you're even thinking about buying a house call a mortgage broker, they have all sorts of clever ideas and insights to make your life easier/save you money. If you're in California I have a guy I can recommend

ist
Mar 9, 2007
lurkin since '01

Leperflesh posted:

I'm also not sure why you are fine with paying your own agent but paying the other agent is a bitter pill to swallow: you benefitted directly from this arrangement when you bought your house, and the buyer's agent is doing work too?

Partly because of this:

Leperflesh posted:

Of course the entire fee structure is part of the insanely flagrant price-fixing monopoly behavior by the national association of realtors and their powerful lobbying, but we are powerless to do anything about that.

And partly because the level of work/effort in selling the home vs buying the home doesn't match up in my experience. At least, when I purchased my home, I handled the search myself but relied on the agent for the paperwork and arranging the home-viewings and inspection. That doesn't really compare to everything that goes into selling a home (unless my experience has been atypical).

Leperflesh posted:

You also do not really want to discourage your local buyers' agents from showing your house to their clients. Imagine if most of the houses they show their clients pay them X, but your house only pays them 2/3s X. Do you think they'll still be completely fair and impartial when they show your house, if they show it at all?

I'm not sure how much of a risk this really is since my home-buying experience involved me conducting my own search using zillow/redfin and, after engaging my agent, using a MLS search that was effectively the same. How many realtor/buyer relationships are like this, and how many have the realtor running the search 100%? I have to assume that the availability of online listings has buyers taking matters into their own hands more frequently but I honestly don't know.

e: and for additional context my home will likely be in the $400k-$450k range so a 2% commission is still $8k+.

ist fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Nov 16, 2023

Uthor
Jul 9, 2006

Gummy Bear Heaven ... It's where I go when the world is too mean.

Hadlock posted:

Anything that isn't buying groceries or paying utility bills, try and avoid in the 65 days before you begin applying for mortgages. The underwriter WILL ask for documentation (usually just a statement from you, signed and dated) for any unusual (in particular cash) transactions. Opening new lines of credit, or accruing new CC debt 90 days before applying for a mortgage is super super sloppy don't do it

Between my offer being accepted and closing on the house, I got a raise at work and had to spend like three days getting paperwork back and forth why I was earning more money than I said I was.

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

ist posted:

Partly because of this:

And partly because the level of work/effort in selling the home vs buying the home doesn't match up in my experience. At least, when I purchased my home, I handled the search myself but relied on the agent for the paperwork and arranging the home-viewings and inspection. That doesn't really compare to everything that goes into selling a home (unless my experience has been atypical).

I'm not sure how much of a risk this really is since my home-buying experience involved me conducting my own search using zillow/redfin and, after engaging my agent, using a MLS search that was effectively the same. How many realtor/buyer relationships are like this, and how many have the realtor running the search 100%? I have to assume that the availability of online listings has buyers taking matters into their own hands more frequently but I honestly don't know.

e: and for additional context my home will likely be in the $400k-$450k range so a 2% commission is still $8k+.

This sounds like you want to make a whole thing out of something currently being litigated by actual courts. Yes, we all agree with you in principal, and so has a jury in Kansas City. But if you want to sell your house for the market price in a reasonable amount of time you're going to pay 5% or a bit less if you Redfin it, which likely will extend the time it takes to sell it.

It's up to you if you want to take a stand about this right now, with your own home, when the litigation has just started.

ist
Mar 9, 2007
lurkin since '01
Yeah I read an article about the Missouri verdict and really hope it will lead to positive changes. Nothing personal against realtors, I'd rather be able to, for instance, pick from a menu of services needed in either buying or selling and paying an appropriate price for each service required rather than paying 6% split evenly regardless of how much work I do myself vs. whatever the realtor helps with.

Mostly I'm just curious if this is technically possible so I appreciate the replies!


e: \/ \/ \/ fair, yeah I have no intention of going the FSBO route. I recognize that engaging a listing agent and paying the full 6% will almost certainly be a net positive.

ist fucked around with this message at 02:36 on Nov 16, 2023

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

ist posted:

Mostly I'm just curious if this is technically possible so I appreciate the replies!

It's is 100% technically possible. You can FSBO your house and refuse to pay buyer agents. So none of them will show it.

You will be putting up flyers and craigslis/fb market place ads to sell you home because it will not be on the MLS. This means you will not be likely to sell you house soon, or at a market price. Or even for cash at that point, because you're gonna whittle your buyer pool down to goldbugs and cryptocurrency people at best.

This is exactly what the lawsuit(s) are about. But this will not be fixed in the near term.

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Shifty Pony
Dec 28, 2004

Up ta somethin'


The best you can do currently is to throughly document your extra expenses so that you can put in a claim when/if the big cases go through.

If the NAR's scheme were easy to bypass they wouldn't have just lose a $1,600,000,000 case covering a single state's real estate market.

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