|
We closed our house this past Friday. Holy poo poo, what an adventure that was. It was a short sale, and when we got to closing we found out that the seller was going to need to push back a week. Then, when we went back, we found out that they had to push it back again. Finally, we got it all sorted out -- the HOA had decided to try and extort $10,000 in fees from the bank, and had gotten a lien. After that, the escrow agent realized the seller had gotten married and his wife hadn't signed, which is important since we're in a community interest state. Now that we have the place, we've been doing some minor renovations. We got some awesome closeout deals on materials and, in some cases, labor from contractors that are stuck with tons of inventory they can't move, so we're putting replacing the vinyl bathroom and kitchen floors with tile, redoing a bunch of the trashed carpet with laminate, and making some improvements to the kitchen. Before agreeing to do a short sale, the guy had ripped out all the light and plumbing fixtures, so we got to replace all those with poo poo we like. But, for all the work we have to put into the place, we got an awesome deal: 4.78% fixed, and we paid I'd guess somewhere around a third of what the original owner paid a few years ago for the house plus some extensions he put in, and about 3/4 of what some of our new neighbors with the same floorplan and comparable improvements paid over the past couple months. Our monthly mortgage payment is comparable to what we paid for housing in college. Our total costs, including insurance, taxes and estimated maintenance, but not accounting for tax deductions, is less than our monthly rent at our last place.
|
#
¿
Jun 24, 2009 18:59
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 21, 2024 23:33 |
|
|
Until there's a signed agreement, you're not a buyer and he's not a seller. You're two people who would be interested in making a transaction at the right price. For some people, the right price just isn't going to come right now, but their circumstances are such that they feel like they have to explore it anyway. Don't get too bent out of shape about it. We had a house with the same exact problem: we loved the house, and offered a reasonable price on it, and the guy wasn't interested. We ended up finding another house that we liked even more for way less than we offered on the first one, literally down the street on the same block. It's a tedious and time-consuming process, but I promise you, if you're willing to entertain doing fix-ups, then you're already committed to way more work than sifting through a few unenthusiastic would-be sellers will pose.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 9, 2009 06:53
|
|
|
Black Jasper posted:Great thread. I guess I'd caution you to remember that you do not want to buy a house from friends; you want to buy a house, and that house happens to be owned by friends. While I hope that your friendship is genuine enough that no one will try anything underhanded, business has to be treated like business and there is no room here for either of you to relax on the sale any more than you would with complete strangers. If either of you start trying to do the other side any favors, then not only will at least one of you get hosed over, but you'll probably also lose your friendship. So, do your homework and look at lots of other houses, just like you would if this weren't owned by friends. Find at least a couple more that you would consider buying, and start comparing them. Understand why you'd pay a higher price for one over the other. Also, make sure you REALLY know all about everything that goes into buying a house, from writing and submitting a purchase offer, getting a signed agreement, opening escrow, getting your inspections done, how you can back out if things go wrong, what needs to be done for the house before you take possession, and so forth, because you're going to be responsible for all of that and you don't have an agent to lean on for help. On the other hand, while there are some fantastic realtors out there, the realty world is filled with incompetent gently caress-ups, so you really can't ever learn too much about how to do this on your own.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 10, 2009 03:07
|
|
|
Dik Hz posted:This is great advice (and what I'm currently doing). Rent for a year in your new city. It costs you a year's worth of equity, but you get to learn about the area and different neighborhoods and maintain the needed flexibility at a transitional time in your life. Let me third this. I did exactly the same thing, in Las Vegas, having moved out here for a job located in Summerlin, over the past year. I ended up NOT buying in Summerlin. Houses there are sardine-canned, even by Vegas standards, and overpriced relative to the rest of the city. Las Vegas is easy enough to get around that you really can cast a very wide net when you go fishing for a house, either to rent or to buy. While as Dik says, you will indeed lose a year's equity by waiting, you'll find that a year's equity in a house that you hate is something you'll be willing to pay dearly to get rid of.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 20, 2009 22:12
|
|
|
xgalaxy posted:What areas of Las Vegas would you recommend I look into? The Summerlin website does a good job of selling the neighborhood (no surprise there). But if there are better areas I'd definitely like to hear about them. The whole west side of town is very new. I'm living down in Mountain's Edge, which is in the southwest. It's like a less complete version of Summerlin. Prices here are lower, because Summerlin has had time to develop stuff like shopping centers, and Mountain's Edge has not. I'm not sure where the borders of this development run -- I think it's roughly south of Blue Diamond, from Fort Apache over to Rainbow. But the whole southwest is worth looking at, since I think as a general rule it's kinda undervalued compared to Summerlin. Rhodes Ranch might be the exception; it's a fairly posh golf course community. I didn't look at golf course-adjacent homes enough to tell if a house overlooking Rhodes is cheaper than a comparable house overlooking, say, Red Rock Country Club. As a point of reference, I would say that coming from around Durango and Blue Diamond, I am in light traffic about 20 minutes away from Red Rock Casino, by Charleston and 215, which I'm guessing is going to be fairly close to your offices in Summerlin. I found my rental through Craigslist. This worked out very, very well. You'll see lots of listings in Summerlin, Alliante, Mountain's Edge, Green Valley, and all the other big new developments, along with plenty of older houses as well.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2009 10:33
|
|
|
peengers posted:Yeah, I gathered this. I can sit back and twiddle my thumbs for the next year if I have to, in my mind each month that goes by costs me nothing but costs them plenty. It's in their best interest to get this done quickly. You will find that the bank has a very different idea of what "quickly" means than you do.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 30, 2009 19:53
|
|
|
Yeah, for a pre-approval, don't worry too much about what bank you get it from. Choosing your actual lender is a hefty amount of work that requires a fair bit of investigation. You'll want to know not just what's the rate, but what're the closing costs, and what issues might you face from that particular lender like bad customer service, lengthy minimum close times, unusual requirements in inspecting the property, will they even lend to you, and so forth. That's something you might want to devote a little bit of time to every couple days throughout the process, so that by the time you get an acceptance, you have a list of banks you'd borrow from, and you can compare their rates on the day you formally apply for a mortgage to see who's the cheapest.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 12, 2009 19:43
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 21, 2024 23:33 |
|
|
N. Ratched posted:Wow, 2 months. Our realtor (whom I really like..) wrote a time-schedule in the offer with us being handed keys on May 28.. so I was expecting a yes or no this week. I guess we'll see what happens. Based on my own experience, I would politely describe your realtor as extremely optimistic. Closing within 30 days of agreement or so is an exhausting and laborious process. You have inspections to do, and those inspections will have results, and those results may need to be discussed. You'll find other surprises that have to be ironed out, and you'll have to figure out who's dime that's on. If it's in an HOA community, you'll want to verify with the HOA that the house is free of violations. And, of course, you have to get a mortgage -- and the mortgage company will want their appraiser out there, and they'll want paperwork, and they'll lose the paperwork, and then they'll decide that they need more, then they'll say that there was a problem with the first paperwork you sent them, but the underwriting department wasn't clear on what and that guy is off today. But, you're not getting an agreement that fast. I did a short sale and got a reply within about 3 weeks. I tell realtors this, and they are astounded. More typical: 3 months. There was another short sale that I offered on at the same time as the one I ended up buying. After we closed (weeks late, thanks to more delays with the seller and his bank), I asked my realtor if we ever heard anything back about it. He said, yeah -- the day after closing, we finally heard back from the bank, probably 2-3 months after offering. They said, "could you give us a 6 month extension to consider your offer?"
|
|
#
¿
Apr 25, 2010 21:24
|
|