Possibly buying a house, have questions

exalted512

Well, we agreed upon a price of $160, 500, contingent on what we see in the inspection logs, our inspections, financing, and the things that were promised on (stretching carpet, touching up paint, pressure washing everything).

He is going to provide us with a contract today that we will take to a real estate lawyer to make sure everything is on the up and up. The house appraised for over $167k, so we think we got a good deal.

We will be paying closing costs, but if we find anything wrong with the inspections, we might re-negotiate for him paying some of that.

I'll provide a link to photobucket later today with the pictures.
-Cody

jimmydep

Good News!!! Good wishes for a quick, smooth transaction.


Jim D

BIZILL

CODY, clear out your pm's por favor...and good luck with the house!

exalted512

BIZILL wrote: »

CODY, clear out your pm's por favor...and good luck with the house!

done!

Here are the pics!
http://s79.photobucket.com/albums/j133/Exalted512/House/
-Cody

BIZILL

fugg yeah! lovin' that casa. keep in mind though that it'll become quite smaller once furnished. i remember my house seemed so large at one time...lol.

exalted512

BIZILL wrote: »

fugg yeah! lovin' that casa. keep in mind though that it'll become quite smaller once furnished. i remember my house seemed so large at one time...lol.

Haha, true...but we dont even have HALF of the space of this house now. We're busting out the seams!

But last time we went house shopping has taught me not to count my chickens before theyre hatched.

Still need the inspections and finalize the financing,
-Cody

exalted512

Got the contract yesterday, and he put the wrong price on it. $161,500 instead of $160,500. So we're going to get him to make a new one next week, then have a lawyer look at it. He's out of town for the weekend, so I'm not going to bother him until hes back.
-Cody

Knucklehead

good luck with the transaction.

BjornB17

Do what I did.... I negotiated a price on my new house, and then when i showed up to sign the contract a week later i brought a realtor with me

Also a lot of realtors will actually PAY YOU to use them. My realtor paid me $1000 after i closed on the house. Basically he got 3% of the sale price and cut me a check. I managed to negotiate $19,000 off of the sales price and $5000 towards closing.

But having a realtor makes things much better, especially if building from ground up as they serve as the mediator for any kind of problems you might have.

exalted512

Lasareath wrote: »

90 days is a good amount of time, it took us around 60 days to get the Obama money.

But, I had some back taxes from 2008 and there was $5000 left, so I only received $3000 and now I don't owe them anything.

i was under the impression you get the money back with your taxes? Obviously thats not the case. Can you enlighten me a little more on how it works?
-Cody

Demiurge

exalted512 wrote: »

i was under the impression you get the money back with your taxes? Obviously thats not the case. Can you enlighten me a little more on how it works?
-Cody

That is the case, however there's a form where you amend last years taxes if you want the money faster. It's government form #1040X.

It's a credit, too, not necessarily just straight up $8,000 cash. Meaning that if you owe $2,000 in taxes you'll only get a check for $6,000 back. If they owe you $2,000 you'll get a check back for $10,000. This is also assuming you fall under all of the other parameters, which I'm sure you do.

exalted512

We're married and the house is going under both of our names. Thanks for the help! I've never owed the gubment money, so hopefully I wont have a problem with that. In fact, my last refund was $1500, but we'll see.

Thank for the clarification!
-Cody

exalted512

Well, were officially under contract! Now we're just waiting on financing.
-Cody

exalted512

Well, the financing is pretty much done. Couple loose ends to tie up. We're also glad we didnt lock in our rate just yet, as it fell from 5.25 to 5.1.

Closing date is October 19th. The last thing we have to do is the inspection, which happens on Thursday, then the final walk through on the closing day and were done!

The wife and I are really excited now.

Also, a big thanks to Shack for helping me figuring out a couple things on our settlement fees!
-Cody

kevhed72

reeltrouble1 wrote: »

cody the builder will screw you seven ways from Sunday and then laugh about it.

proceed with caution if you go it alone.


RT1

Yes, they will definitely. I would go the route of attorney specializing in real estate closings vs. real estate agent. Not sure the purpose of an agent if you already know what you would like to buy. I made this mistake on my current house and will never make that mistake again.

jimmydep

Things seem like they're moving quickly, it looks like you'll be in before the holidays.

tcrossma

kevhed72 wrote: »

Yes, they will definitely. I would go the route of attorney specializing in real estate closings vs. real estate agent. Not sure the purpose of an agent if you already know what you would like to buy. I made this mistake on my current house and will never make that mistake again.

The seller pays the real estate agent fee, usually either 5-7%. If the buyer has a realtor, that fee is split 50/50 between the two agents. If the buyer does not have a realtor and contacts the seller's realtor directly, the sellers realtor keeps the entire commission. As a buyer it makes no difference financially if you do or do not use your own real estate agent.

kevhed72

tcrossma wrote: »

The seller pays the real estate agent fee, usually either 5-7%. If the buyer has a realtor, that fee is split 50/50 between the two agents. If the buyer does not have a realtor and contacts the seller's realtor directly, the sellers realtor keeps the entire commission. As a buyer it makes no difference financially if you do or do not use your own real estate agent.

I guess I personnally had a bad realtor and no lawyer experience. Can't it be written into the contract the the seller's agent only receives 2.5 - 3.5%, and the seller save the other 2.5 - 3.5%?

exalted512

In our case, there was no realtor involved on either side, so we were able to negotiate a little better since he knew there would be no fees associated with paying a realtor.
-Cody

BIZILL

when do you think this'll be a done deal? betcha you're already ready for the move. packed boxes and what nots?

exalted512

BIZILL wrote: »

when do you think this'll be a done deal? betcha you're already ready for the move. packed boxes and what nots?

We are supposed to hear back from underwriting on our loan sometime tomorrow and we will be able to lock in our rate then. They don't see any problems as of right now with anything...so we're crossing our fingers. I hope nothing goes wrong because I'm getting an inspection and spending $300 today.

But if everything goes to plan, we close on oct 19th at 9am. Basically, that means were taking over the box spring and mattress, hang up clothes for a day or two, and our main chest of drawers. We'll get the internet turned on there on the 20th, so I'll move the cable model and router over there tuesday. Couple small things here and there until the weekend, then her parents and bro and my parents and brother will be coming down with trailers to help us move. The nice thing is the house is only about 7 minutes away from our current house.

As far as packing, the wife has started, I haven't. She's already out of school, this is my last semester...but I've had a ton of projects and tests this week and next week.

I really think well be done moving all of our crap from the duplex to the house by saturday night, weather permitting. Its been raining about every day here for the last couple weeks, so hopefully we can at least get the weekend with little to no rain.

After we move in, the garage floor is getting an epoxy coat on it...

How's the alarm treating you?
-Cody

tcrossma

kevhed72 wrote: »

I guess I personnally had a bad realtor and no lawyer experience. Can't it be written into the contract the the seller's agent only receives 2.5 - 3.5%, and the seller save the other 2.5 - 3.5%?

Anything could be agreed upon between you and your realtor I suppose, but it's more complicated than that.

When you decide to sell your house and you go to a realtor, you sign a contract agreeing upon a length of time you'll give the realtor to sell the house, and the percentage of the commission for the sale. That commission is usually in the 5-7% range. When the sale is made, each real estate company takes half of the commission, the company takes their cut and the remainder goes to the agent.

The commission rate for each house is shown to the realtors on their daily inventory sheets. So when it comes time for a buyers realtor to recommend houses for their client and they select between a house giving a 5% commission and a house giving 7%, the 7% house might get the majority of showings.

The bottom line is that the seller pays the realtor fees, so there's not a very strong argument for going it alone when buying.

exalted512

tcrossma wrote: »

The bottom line is that the seller pays the realtor fees, so there's not a very strong argument for going it alone when buying.

like ive said before, in my case....there was NO realtors involved on EITHER side. So there is a strong argument for going at it alone.
-Cody

swerve

Good for you Cody. congrats.

SKsolutions

exalted512 wrote: »

like ive said before, in my case....there was NO realtors involved on EITHER side. So there is a strong argument for going at it alone.
-Cody

I'm going to bite my tongue, cross my fingers for you, and only wish you both luck with your closing.
It's a great time to buy, and it'll set you up later down the line. Good luck, and congrats.

exalted512

Lasareath wrote: »

Cody,

who is your mortgage company?, I'm with Wells Fargo and they screwed me on the closing day. It was a friday at 2pm and everything was all done but Wells Fargo did not transfer the funds to the title company untill 5pm and we could not pickup up the keys untill monday. My wife was very upset because she had plans to clean the house all weekend and we couldn't.

I was told by my attorney that he has seen this many times and that you should try to schedule the closing at 5pm or later.

I hope it doesn't happen to you!

Sal

lendingtree.com is the mortgage company.

The closing is at 9am, but all we're doing is going there, signing the papers, and going back to work. Its on a monday so if we dont move in until tuesday, we'll be a little disappointed, but nothing like missing the whole weekend.

-Cody

SKsolutions

Lendingtree is not a lender or broker. They'll just match you with someone who is, and charge you a fee.

exalted512

SKsolutions wrote: »

Lendingtree is not a lender or broker. They'll just match you with someone who is, and charge you a fee.

All the fees are consistent, if not cheaper than just going straight with a lender. Lendingtree owns home loan center, which IS the current provider of our loan, then they sell it off at a later date.

-Cody

SKsolutions

I'm just putting it out there.
LT is a lead generator, where lenders/brokers buy your info, and then pay LT a referral fee at closing. If you are beating the bank at it's own rate, you ended up with a broker. A broker can generally beat a given bank writing it's very own product. They usually have more flexibility. The retail side of the bank, may not. The point being, that you don't know that the cost incurred by going to Lendingtree couldn't have been negotiated with the same broker you ended up with, if he wasn't already paying the fee to LT. Add to that the charge that LT puts on your CC. If that was going to buy down your rate, wouldn't it be lower with the same guy?
Also, I won't go into the horror stories with brokers, but will say that in general -- anyone in a RE related business that is busy today, is probably very good and reputable. People that resort to buying leads from the internet instead of having a steady stream of positive referrals, . . are at best - an unknown quality. They also don't have any reliance upon the success of the deal at hand to produce further referrals. They just buy more. Triple check the docs that you should get 3 days prior to close against what you got for a GFE. It's not all gloom and doom, it's just that bad stuff still happens, so it's better to be aware.
Read it all, then "sign. . on the line. . which is dotted !"

exalted512

SKsolutions wrote: »

I'm just putting it out there.
LT is a lead generator, where lenders/brokers buy your info, and then pay LT a referral fee at closing. If you are beating the bank at it's own rate, you ended up with a broker. A broker can generally beat a given bank writing it's very own product. They usually have more flexibility. The retail side of the bank, may not. The point being, that you don't know that the cost incurred by going to Lendingtree couldn't have been negotiated with the same broker you ended up with, if he wasn't already paying the fee to LT. Add to that the charge that LT puts on your CC. If that was going to buy down your rate, wouldn't it be lower with the same guy?
Also, I won't go into the horror stories with brokers, but will say that in general -- anyone in a RE related business that is busy today, is probably very good and reputable. People that resort to buying leads from the internet instead of having a steady stream of positive referrals, . . are at best - an unknown quality. They also don't have any reliance upon the success of the deal at hand to produce further referrals. They just buy more. Triple check the docs that you should get 3 days prior to close against what you got for a GFE. It's not all gloom and doom, it's just that bad stuff still happens, so it's better to be aware.
Read it all, then "sign. . on the line. . which is dotted !"

appreciate the heads up!
-Cody