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Thanks for putting this together, I think it'll be good to have this all in one place. Now for a question: Has anyone used Redfin to actually buy a house? I'm heavily considering it, but I wonder what people's experiences with it are when it comes to meeting with an agent and closing. The biggest negative I see to using Redfin over a broker is I don't have someone finding houses for me. But I really feel like I (and probably most people who know how to use the internet) don't need that anymore. From my experiences, every house on the market is listed on Redfin, so I'm not missing any. I have daily alerts on new houses, and most weekends I look over all the listings again anyway. I guess I'd worry that they might not negotiate as well as "my own" broker, but the case studies on their site seem to prove otherwise (for what they're worth). The biggest advantages are the money, of course, and the lack of pressure. The money I would put right towards the down payment (basically, by borrowing ~4000 from my parents until I got the money from Redfin). And for the pressure, I hate dealing with sales people and feel the same way about brokers (especially after what I read in Freakonomics awhile back).
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May 6, 2009 13:24
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Does anyone know if banks are strict about using loaned money to pay for the downpayment? I know this used to be impossible, and thought it changed in the late 90's (and probably led to a lot of the problems with the housing crisis). I'm looking at a few houses where I'm just a few thousand short of 20%. If I happen to find a house I want to jump on, I'd hate to have to pay PMI for 2 years just because of that. My dad offered to use his home equity line to loan me the money at 3% or whatever low rate he's currently getting. That way I'd only be throwing away $150/yr (on the interest) instead of $200/mo on PMI. Would something like this be possible?
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May 7, 2009 19:28
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Barry posted:How are you paying $200/mo on PMI? I also doubt that the mortgage company would be able to track it down to being loaned money if it's sitting in your bank account as cash. You could basically just call it a gift from your father. I have no real idea though, just seems tough to track. Not sure. The bank quoted us around $180 for 15% down on a $400,000 house. Boston area. NJ Deac posted:They will look at your statements for any large deposits in the last 60 days. If you have any, you will have to explain them, and possibly have the donor sign a form that is basically an affadavit stating "This is a gift/payment and does not need to be paid back." This is really good to hear, thanks!
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May 8, 2009 00:51
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FidgetyRat posted:PMI is actually quite simple.. Its calculated in brackets based on the total mortgage. Note, I'm not financial expert, but this is how it was explained to me and taken from PMI tables elsewhere. That's really good to know, thanks. They must have been calculating on a 10% down instead then.
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May 8, 2009 19:58
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mlmp08 posted:I'm looking to become a first time home buyer. I'm a married Lieutenant in the Army, and I'm currently deployed. I'm planning on buying a $120-140K home when I get back to the states in late October/Early November in order to take advantage of the tax credit. Also, you will have to close before December 1st to qualify for the credit. Unless you have your house pick out and are pre-approved, it's probably going to prove fairly challenging to close before 12/1.
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May 18, 2009 18:20
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I still am stunned that the government didn't find a way to make the $8000 available for use as a down payment. Apparently this is starting to happen in Missouri, but that's about it. I can't believe that banks also don't have some type of system setup for this. I mean I wouldn't even mind paying a fair amount of interest for a two month $8000 loan that I would pay back the moment I received the credit. The only alternative seems to be to borrow the money from my dad, but then I believe he'd have to sign an affidavit saying he was giving me the money (not loaning it), which he's a little hesitant to do, being a lawyer and all.
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Jun 17, 2009 13:56
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It's not that it won't make or break the house purchase. We have $60,000 saved for our downpayment. What is limiting our house purchase is not the monthly mortage/tax/insurance payments, but the 20% down payment. I just do not want to pay PMI. The $8000 would put us over 20% on several of the houses we're looking at, and that's why I want it so bad for the down payment.
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Jun 18, 2009 15:00
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MrMidnight posted:I don't know, to me it seems like you've saved a massive amount of money already. What's hurting you to just save up 8k more? How long has it taken you to save up the 60k? It's a good question. There's a few things: 1) In order for our lease to go month-to-month, our rent will increase 25%. That's a huge incentive to get out of there ASAP 2) It's taken about 4 years to save the $60k, but I haven't been able to save as much the past 6 months due to the economy (20% of my salary is my bonus, almost all of which goes to savings, and which I haven't gotten much of recently). 3) I'd rather have a free $8k than save $8k of my own money! Zeta Taskforce posted:This is a non issue. If you don’t quite have the 20% and they want you to pay PMI, and the $8,000 tax credit is the only thing from you reaching 20%, just file the amendment after you close, and in a couple months when it comes in, just use it to pay down your loan. Then call and write your mortgage company reminding them that you now have more than 20% equity in the property now, and they should stop charging you PMI. I thought I read earlier in this thread that depending on the bank, you might need to own the house for longer than two years, or need 25% equity to get rid of the PMI? If not though, that's not a bad option. I suppose I should go ahead and ask my bank about this. roadhead posted:Nearing $70,000 for 20% ? I'm glad I don't have to buy where you live, couldn't afford it! Yeah, painful isn't it? That's North Boston for you (though actually you can look all the way as far as southern New Hampshire and still have the same costs). Houses around here average about $220/sq ft. And that's after a 45% drop in house prices over the past two years.
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Jun 18, 2009 16:15
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SlapActionJackson posted:The 25% equity & 2 years requirements were for when you wanted to drop PMI based on property appreciation (re-appraisal). Allowing this at all is up to the lender. On the other hand, they are required by law to drop PMI at your request when you get to 20% equity from the original value when you closed the loan, provided the property has not declined in value and you don't have any other liens on the property. Thanks for the explanation, but I'm still a bit confused. Why would anyone want to wait longer than 20% on the original value, if they always have that option? In any case though, this is really good news, as it sounds like if we're $8k short of 20%, then we just pay it for the two months it takes for the government to send our tax credit, and then we'll be done with it.
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Jun 19, 2009 15:08
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Realjones posted:It's very doubtful that it will pass. First off because it didn't pass the first time it was proposed in the stimulus bill and second because it won't help. Sellers will just jack up their home prices another $7K like the $8K they did when the credit first became available. Is there proof of this, or is it just an assumption? As a buyer I see the $8000 as a nice perk, but considering I can't use it for the down payment, it doesn't really influence what I would pay for the house.
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Jul 1, 2009 18:22
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Dik Hz posted:First result on google for "average house price" I'm not sure this proves anything. What about the spike last month? Unless you're attributing the entire rise in house prices to this act, which seems pretty generous. I'd say that rise is more due to the decline in mortgage rates and more of a feeling that housing prices have bottomed and the economy is turning positive (as seen in the stock market). I think it's much more likely the $8000 would effect negotiations regarding, say, closing, more so than what people list the house at. And knowing most Americans, they see the $8000 as money they can spend on a new kitchen, TV, or vacation, than money they will throw towards the mortgage.
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Jul 7, 2009 21:40
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Dik Hz posted:The prime rate dropped steadily through all of 2008, and has held steady all of 2009. They did drop below 5 though in early 2009 though, which is a psychological trigger for people. But I agree, it can't really be proven either way. And I was just basing those feelings solely on the first strong performance of the stock market since late 2008, as well as sales volumes of existing homes remaining steady and the average sale price at least declining slower than in previous months.
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Jul 8, 2009 03:06
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On another note, interesting report from PMI Group released today (here) that also shows home prices to continue falling through 2011. Unfortunately my area, Boston, is about a 50/50 chance to fall, at least according to this report. So frustrating. There's just so many conflicting reasons for and against buying a house in this area this summer / fall, it's driving me insane. I suppose it's good in a way that we haven't seen more than one decent house yet. All we see are houses for $230/sq foot that were last updated in 1960, or we see split levels and their terrible layout, or houses from the 1600's where the living rooms are all 16x12. Hell, I don't think we've seen a single house with a living room bigger than 17x12. I should really stop torturing myself by watching House Hunters too. Last night there was a couple in Houston and ALL the guy cared about was the grill. They ended up choosing a house with no yard (which the wife wanted of course) but a 50 square foot alley where he could fit his grill, and the kitchen had a counter "perfect for margaritas". They didn't choose the other house because they didn't like the chandeliers in the living room. 
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Jul 8, 2009 13:17
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Zombie Dictator posted:What are your thoughts on this budget? Anything I should add, change, or remove? What can I expect back on a tax rebate every year since I claim a 2 on federal? Looks pretty good - assuming your girlfriend doesn't move out and leave you with $0 left over every month. I was going to say $650 wasn't much until I saw you budgeted your entertainment costs as well. What you really should do though is use the IRS withholding calculator and immediately update your W4 as soon as you move into this house. There's no reason to give the government a tax free loan just so that in April you can have an excuse to buy a big screen TV (I'm not really speaking to you directly as I am the mass of idiots who do this). Also, I assume health insurance is paid for by your job.
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Jul 16, 2009 13:49
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Just sent in our first offer request to Redfin. A bit nervous - we've been looking since October and haven't found more than one decent house, so we kind of gave up, and then suddenly one falls into our lap. That already has a few offers in on it, which adds to the stress. Anyway, my question is: We're currently in an apartment. At what point during the process could we give our apartment 60 days moving notice with 95% confidence that the house deal would go through? Basically, I want to avoid paying rent and a mortgage for too long.
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Jul 26, 2009 01:33
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Yeah, I've been working for 2 1/2 years, and when my bank found out I used to be self employed before that, they required even further proof I wasn't self employed anymore. Pretty crazy.
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Aug 1, 2009 02:20
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Has anyone here owned a house, or known someone who owns a house, with a septic system? We are looking at purchasing a house which was built in 1978 and still has the same septic system. It just passed inspection with flying colors, but I know these things last 20-40 years. The cost to repair/replace looks like it ranges from $1500-$10,000 depending on the issue. So I'm really not sure how to work this into our offer. Any suggestions?
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Aug 18, 2009 16:48
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What have people's experiences with inspections been? My wife and I had an inspection for a house we were really excited about. It had almost no visible problems, so we were hoping the insides of the house were taken care of just as well. Unfortunately, some big ticket items needed to be replaced, including the roof, second story deck, attic ventilation, and boiler. Then there were lots of smaller issues as well. We're not even going to bother with getting quotes for all those, as it'll total at least $50,000 and that's not even including the minor items.
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Aug 24, 2009 01:11
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DerbyTime!!! posted:We had a good inspector and agent. After our inspection was done and a few medium-sized problems were identified, we were able to get the seller to lower the price by $10K from our already-accepted offer, and got our lender to keep the $10K in the loan so we'd have money available to get the work done. Thanks for the response. It's also really good to know we can keep the money we negotiate in the loan, since there's no way we'd have $50k lying around for the repairs.
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Aug 24, 2009 17:30
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Droo posted:-$79: Fed Inc Tax Savings (.25*(($3200CAtax+$11992int)-$11400standard))/12 Not to derail your discussion, but I just wanted to say thanks for this formula. I had no idea it was so easy to at least approximate tax savings for owning a home. Plus I assume the additional expenses you can list when you itemize (like medical) would only add to those savings.
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Aug 25, 2009 15:32
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Well, the big question is where do you live, and what are the average house prices for, say, a 3 bedroom house? As for a realtor ... I too faced the same issue, and unless you have a strong personal recommendation all I can suggest is to go lots of open houses and talk to the realtors to at least find one whose personality works well for you. Of course, that doesn't guarantee they'll be a great realtor. We did that and ended up with a perfectly nice woman who picked out horrible houses and recommended we go above asking price for every house we were remotely interested in. We ended up using Redfin.com, which has been wonderful, but they only serve a few cities.
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Aug 27, 2009 14:20
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Leperflesh posted:Not that I'm one to talk - buying in the SF Bay Area - but the issue really shouldn't be "this is what people like me in my area are willing to pay." What is important is whether it's worth it to you, and those other people's situations don't matter a bit. For gently caress's sake, please heed this point. The average credit card debt for the American household is $13,000. I sure as hell don't have $13,000 in debt because my coworkers do. This whole credit and housing crisis is because of way too many people living above their means, so why are people still using "well this is what my friends do" as reasoning for their financial decisions?
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Sep 3, 2009 01:22
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Sophia posted:Half of the reason I came here was because half of the mortgage brokers I talked to told me I could afford $360K with a 15% downpayment easily and I didn't know if I could believe them or they just liked my credit score. Turns out that it's the latter. It is unfortunate that even with all the ridiculous banks just went through, some of them still come off like this. I live in Boston and am looking for a house there. Homes here cost 80% more than they do even in Chicago, so I can commiserate with expensive housing prices. I feel stretched even for a $400,000 house, and yet the bank was happy to encourage me to look at $500,000. Pretty ridiculous. I'm glad to hear though that you're going to wait a bit before making this decision. I know there's been a few times I've been so desperate to find a house (been looking for a year now) I've wanted to look at houses out of my range.
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Sep 3, 2009 15:48
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How many of you locked a mortgage rate more than 30 days out? It'd be about $800 for me to do so at 45 days, and the rates right now look fantastic (5.150), but that's a lot of cash out of hand for what in a way seems like a gamble.
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Sep 9, 2009 14:15
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Abbeh posted:Ever feel like everything that can go wrong has gone wrong with buying a house has gone wrong? Sorry to hear about all your troubles. That's a lot to go through! My wife and I have been looking for a year now, and have had maybe 5 houses we've been interested in. With each one we've made it one step closer. So the first one had an accepted offer the day of the open house, the next one had an accepted offer after we called to place one, the next we lost to a bidding war, the next fell through after inspection, and we're now on the 5th which will hopefully be the last, because we sure do love it. Our 10 day inspection contingency expires in two days and we're rushing to get everything done by Friday. I don't know how people manage to do this in the standard 7 days. Our only worry with this house was mold in the attic, which sounds like it could be either a minor cleanup or a $45,000 roof replacement. moana posted:Just got the $8k check from the IRS. I feel bad for people who buy now, they will probably have to wait even longer than we did because of the backlog. Don't count on that money to come right away, guys, make sure you have some extra savings. It will take more than 6 months to get any government moneys and you will need to spend $3000 on the dentist in the meantime and then who knows what else. I'm curious, did anyone here file an extension and do their $8k that way instead of an amendment? I knew it was likely I'd be buying a house this year so I just filed an extension on my federal taxes. I wonder if that will make the rebate check any sooner (or later) than if I had done an amendment.
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Sep 16, 2009 14:34
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Abbeh posted:drat that sucks if it ends up costing that much. Though if it does, would you be able to work that into the agreement and make the house price a bit lower? Well, the $45,000 number was from a family friend who had that happen two months ago. The mold was so bad it ate through the rafters and the whole attic had to be replaced. But yeah, if it was just a few thousand dollar issue I'd hope we could work something out with the seller. Good news is we had an attic ventilation guy go out there yesterday, because our house inspector said the attic lacked enough ventilation which was causing mold. But the ventilation guy said it was fine and that he didn't even see mold. I suppose the inspection companies just have to be really paranoid about any possible issues to avoid being sued, but I do feel bad having all these guys go out there for a non-issue. Of course, better do that then find out about a massive problem months later.
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Sep 17, 2009 14:11
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Cmdr. Shepard posted:The "standard" must be different from state to state. In Illinois we have a 5 day inspection period, and it was a lot of rushing to get the inspection done, the place de-winterized, etc... Do you get a longer inspection period if it's not bank owned? I wonder if that's the case since I'm buying a foreclosure. Oh man, I can't imagine what it would have been like having just 5 days. Our property is not bank owned so maybe that's why there was more flexibility. I think we could have put whatever we wanted, but obviously the offer is going to look less attractive if you put down 20 days for an inspection. Obvious Paranoia posted:What's the best way to deal with homes that have mold? I've searched around a bit, but haven't found any satisfactory answers/opinions, so I figured I'd check here. We are finalizing a deal on a house today that has mold in the attic. It was tough to find information on. The biggest problems with mold seem to be if it's toxic mold which can affect your health, or mold that can eat away at your structure. So it really has to be taken on a case-by-case basis. From what I read, mold removal costs tend to average $600-$5000. Of course, that's assuming the mold hasn't gone into the structure. I heard a horror story where mold ate away at a roof and the entire attic and roof had to be replaced for $45,000. We just heard back from our mold inspector who said there was mold on about half the panels in the attic of the house we are buying, and it would cost $3000 to remove. However he said the removal would be from a pure equity standpoint, meaning when we went to sell the house and someone found mold, it would lower the value of the house. He said that the mold would have no effect on our health, and did not damage the structure. You can pay for mold air quality tests too, but I think that's more if you have suspected mold hidden somewhere in your house.
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Sep 18, 2009 14:05
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Leperflesh posted:There are millions of other kinds of mold too of course. Some you can basically just scrape off and paint over, other kinds you treat with something and then paint, other kinds you have to replace the wood, and other kinds are toxic and have to be treated professionally. Yeah, that's the frustrating thing. I'm tempted to save the $3000 this guy quoted and just try to do it ourselves. If we look up how to treat it ourselves, and it doesn't look to be coming back, does that mean it worked? As I mentioned earlier the mold guy told us there isn't any problem for our health or the structure of the attic.
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Sep 19, 2009 13:23
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Ugh. That's a nightmare. We just signed our P&S so we're now onto the fun financing and closing phase. Luckily our bank accepted copies of our tax return without a problem.
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Sep 29, 2009 16:14
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Leperflesh posted:The only urgency I am feeling, and it's minor, is interest rates. They're very low right now but if they start to rise rapidly, I'll start to get concerned. I don't want to get stuck with something above 6%. This was my main concern as well. My wife and I are closing on a house in a few weeks. We bought mainly because it was a good time in our life (new kids, settling down, etc). We didn't buy for a measly $8000 on a loan that is going to cost, something like 100 times that. And we didn't buy because home prices are bottoming because, really, who knows. But the mortgage rates being near record lows was definitely a consideration for us. An increase of 1 point in the rate, say from 5 to 6, would cost an extra $200 per month. That's insane!
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Oct 1, 2009 20:14
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Anyone have appraisal issues? I guess up until like two months ago banks could just use their own appraiser and there weren't many problems, but my broker told me that there's no federal regulations that state it must be a third party appraiser. I can't get into details until the deal (hopefully) goes through, but I was curious if anyone had problems and how you dealt with it. We've sent the bank an entire page worth of reasons why it should be re-evaluated, but apparently they have to sign off on it even though the appraiser himself already said there'd be no problem looking at it again.
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Oct 9, 2009 15:40
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PMI policies tend to differ from lender to lender, which is why it's difficult to give out general advice on it. In my experience, PMI was going to be about 0.6% of the cost per year. So for a $300,000 house that'd be $1800/yr = $150/month. In terms of getting it removed, I've read several different policies with that. Some lenders remove it automatically at 22%. Others allow you to file a petition at 20%. My lender automatically removes it at 20% but failed to tell me until late in the process that that was only after 2 years minimum. Also I believe PMI is tax deductible if you are below a certain wage. Personally I did everything I could to try to find ways to avoid PMI, because it's really money you are just throwing away, though I suppose you could say the same about the interest on your mortgage payment.
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Oct 21, 2009 16:42
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Leperflesh posted:I don't think that's quite correct. Yes, it's going to the sellers... which is what it was for (stimulate purchases). But, if you want a loan, your house still has to appraise for what you're paying, built-in-stimulus or not. Exactly. The house I'm purchasing, we put an offer in that came in about $15k over appraisal. The sellers complained about it and used the $8k credit as one of their reasons, but of course the appraiser doesn't care.
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Oct 23, 2009 01:09
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Inferior Third Season posted:Just closed on my house. I just got back from my closing as well! What a fantastic feeling. We started searching in October 2008, saw like 75 houses, had 4 houses fall through, and almost lost this one. Phew. As for the rebate, I haven't looked at this yet but I thought you had to attach a copy of your HUD or something to prove you purchased it? I might be way off though. Daeus posted:I'm contemplating buying soon and while I'm not concerned so much about missing the $8000 credit, I am concerned about interest rates increasing. This was one of the huge reasons we bought this year. The difference in monthly cost for even just one point is crazy. For what it's worth though, I'm pretty sure house prices are somewhat inversely related to mortgage rates, but this is just something other people have told me, not hard facts.
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Oct 27, 2009 17:00
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Man, this poo poo just never ends. So after our fairly hellish process of the past two months, I thought things would be settled once we got the keys after closing. But we should up 8 hours later and they're still moving out. Their stuff is out of the house but still in the garage, and they're still moving. Not too big of a deal, but we go in and find a 2' x 4' piece of carpet missing in the bedroom which had been covered either by furniture or moving boxes. Then I notice all the curtain rods, curtains, and blinds are missing. I don't know about the curtains but I'm pretty sure everything else was supposed to stay, according to the P&S. Anyone else have similar issues?
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Oct 28, 2009 14:16
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skipdogg posted:Check your purchase agreement and talk to your realtor. Usually blinds and window treatments are a part of the home unless otherwise specified. Pretty much anything bolted down (above stove microwave, blinds, even home theatre speakers attached to the wall) should be part of the home unless otherwise specified. Thanks, that makes a lot of sense. I'd love to replace the carpet, but according to costhelper.com that would run us one or two grand.
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Oct 28, 2009 18:49
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whaam posted:On our move-in day we discovered that the carpet in the two upstairs bedrooms was badly stained but beds and dressers had been covering it from sight during inspection. They already had all of their stuff moved out and we were coming from an apartment that we still had posession of for 2 weeks so we just demanded a $1000 credit for cleaning or towards replacement. I think she countered with $750 or something and we just took it because one more amendment to that whole process and I would have had a heart attack. That's good to hear. Yeah, I'm so done with this process I almost just want to forget it all, but we're looking at several hundred to repair that.
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Oct 28, 2009 21:19
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Leperflesh posted:Is there some nice hardwood under the carpet? Sadly, no. We're going to try to work around it though by placing our furniture on top of it. Right now I'm more confused after having gone back tonight and finding they removed several hundred dollars worth of window treatments, not just one or two blinds and curtain rods.
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Oct 29, 2009 02:43
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Mark Kidd posted:I filed in the fourth week of October and am still waiting. Same here. Was planning on calling soon.
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Jan 18, 2010 18:36
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FidgetyRat posted:Oh, on a side note.. I think the worst part about owning a house is scheduling things.. Anytime you need a contractor, or an inspector from the township to come, you better be taking a day off of work because they only come during business hours.. So frustrating. So. True. I hate this. And I work for a fairly understanding company where I can do some work from home. But it's such a pain. I can't even imagine how it would work when we want to redo our kitchen, because it's not like I could work from home for two weeks. Do we just find someone we trust and give him the keys?
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Feb 3, 2010 22:19
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