I've Lost It!

[reno911]

Hey all just wanted to let you all know that I officially lost it!

The wife and I bought our first house, well we at least started the process to purchasing the place... Should be closing around April 8th with Keys in hand.

Ironically too, since 2010 was a bad year. But, we are starting 2011 with a bang!

I am equally freaking out as much as I am excited.

Good news is the garage is mine, as long as she can park her car in there she says!

We have the inspection coming up next week... It is all going so quickly.

Any ways wish me luck!!!

Oh and any advice and comments is welcomed!

[lincpimp]

Buying a house is always a bit stressful. Deadlines and financing can be a real pain. Try to keep your cool, and make sure you go thru the inspection results. Until you sign the papers you can always negotitate price. Hope you have a decent realtor, that helps more than you can imagine.

I have go thru 2 sales, 1st was a piece of cake, the second was a nightmare, took 7 weeks and I went thru 3 loan originators. It all worked out, but talk about high stress levels.

Glad to hear you are going to do it, nice to have a place of your own.

[aqwut]

Good luck, the first time purchase is always stressful.. Make sure you put as much as you can into the mortgage each year... But good luck, she will tell you that you have the garage, but then slowly.... She will move you somewhere else.. LOL, I'm gettin' moved to under the deck.. But, I had to negotiate for spray foam insulation...

Good luck with your new house.and beer usually helps with stress...

[reno911]

I have definitely taken up the beer side of this ordeal. That and the wife brought home a bottle of Grey Goose the night we sent over the signed offer.

The loan officer says that they are uber good a closing on time. So this is going to be a short roller coaster ride.

Wow,a wife that brings home grey goose...definately jealous...

[magman]

Best of luck with your home purchase. It is stress full for sure, but well worth it. My wife and I have been in our house since 99'. Only one draw back to owning your own home....the incidentals that come up when you REALLY don't have any money. At times it will drive you nuts.

[PBO]

Good luck with the purchase process, can be a hand wringing exercise first time around although I'm sure it will all go smoothly for you

I'd be interested to understand more about the process since the sub prime issue put the industry on its head. The lending criteria must be a lot stricter now so if you've achieved conditional approval or similar then you must be a good risk in their view...that's very good for now & the future!

[BrianG]

Good luck, and have fun with the seemingly never ending list of things to do/fix/remodel/etc. Unless of course you had the pleasure of getting a brand new house.

[Rnemhrd]

Good luck but..."Good news is the garage is mine, as long as she can park her car in there she says!"

My harley takes ours up. My deal was the back seat is yours as long as the bike goes in the garage honey! Look left and that is how it went.She got the finger.JK. Good luck on the house, and many years of no surprises!

[JERRY2KONE]

Great to hear. I bought my first house in Hawaii when I was 21. I have owned several homes now along with some in different countries. I have never lost any money on selling a house YET. Advice, well let me see.

First: thing I would say is try to get your real estate agent to include as part of the sale that the seller provide a home warranty for at least one year. If anything goes wrong it will be covered(minus a $60 deductable fee for each incident). I believe we have AA warranty services and they use Sears to cover most calls. It can really save you some money when your moving into a house you know very little about. There are always hidden surprizes to deal with, even if it is a new home.

Second: Make sure when your setting up financing that you include taxes and insurance with your monthly mortgage payment. It sucks when you have huge tax or insurance payments due one time each year. That is what escrow is for.

Third: Make sure that the house is protected by a termite bond, if not make the seller do it. In some states it is required by law. I have seen and had serious termite damage and it is no laughing matter. With out treatment and a bond it can litterally cost you thousands of $$$$$$$$

Fourth: make sure you have some emergency cash stowed away for when something unexpected comes up. At least one or two months mortgage is a good place to start.

Fifth: Make sure when you have to do any improvements of any kind that you do not try to go the cheap way just to save a few bucks. It will kill you later when you finally do decide to sell the house. Do it once, and do it right the first time.

If you share some details about the house we might be able to inform you better on what to look for and what not to do. Slab, siding, Paint, roofing,windows, plumming, electrical, Etc. Etc. Etc....

I hope this info helps you out, and good luck with your life investment.

[lincpimp]

Have to diagree with you Jerry on pont #2.

My latest purchase required me to take out a loan and I went thru all of the available options. The 2 that came up were FHA and conventional. With a conventional loan if you put down 20% you do not have to escrow your tax and ins payments. What does this mean? Well it means that you do not have to put a large sum of money in escrow to cover a full year of tax and ins. And you do not run the risk of the mortgage company upping this amunt if your ins goes up. With a FHA loan you have a variety of hidden costs such as mortgage insurance and other fees, that can add quite a bit to your loan amount over the years.

Yes, you do need to budget to pay your taxes and ins. But you save alot of money doing it yourself, and most importantly you have control over your insurance. My method is not for everyone, but it saved me about 200 bucks a month over a FHA loan, and I do not have to worry about my monthly note changing due to rising ins costs. I am also fee to shop around for a better deal on ins.

And not everyone can put down 20%, but i think it is a good idea to have some equity in the house at the beginning, plus you only finance 80%, saving a bunch of money in interest. I also double pay my note, which will save me a considerable amount of money in interest. Like 80k or so.

Given the housing market now is a great time to buy, but you want to think about the grand total you will pay, not just the monthly note. Still better than renting, no matter how you look at it.

[JERRY2KONE]

I do agree with you James, but if he is a first time buyer he surely wants to keep things simple and not get caught up with too many differnet payments to worry about. That was my point. Even with using the escrow you get to chose who your insurance company is, so that is totally up to you to do the research and make the right choices. You can also change insurance companies any time you like with most mortgage companies. You do not want the bank choosing your insurance. They will snake you big time.

[lincpimp]

Originally Posted by JERRY2KONE

I do agree with you James, but if he is a first time buyer he surely wants to keep things simple and not get caught up with too many differnet payments to worry about. That was my point. Even with using the escrow you get to chose who your insurance company is, so that is totally up to you to do the research and make the right choices. You can also change insurance companies any time you like with most mortgage companies. You do not want the bank choosing your insurance. They will snake you big time.

True, simple is better sometimes, but he needs to do some homework. We are talking big money here, and a little each month adds up to alot. I am planning on retirement eventually and if I can save 180k by figuring out the house thing I think it is worth it.

I have some friends who have the mortgage co do thier ins and she had to spend days sorting it out when someone made a clerical mistake. I could have made 11 call to my ins co and got that sorted out, but she had to make 20 and still had to pay an increased mortgage payment for a few months till it got sorted. Lesson learned by me, I even told her thanks!

[BrianG]

I personally like the escrow route. One check to write (or rather, one e-bill to pay) and it's done. Yeah, the payment can increase as taxes go up and/or insurance changes. You can't do much about taxes, but you can still easily shop for other insurance. Whenever a rate hike has come about in the past, I've always gotten a letter prior to the fact (from various ins companies) which gives me a bit of time to shop around if I so chose (and have). I've never had a "surprise increase" in the last 10 years of owning my home.

Looking back, I personally don't think I want to ever own my own place again. Yes, it's nice to have equity and all, but to me, the disadvantages of home ownership outweigh the benefits. Something always seems to be coming up that needs repair. I can do small things, particularly electrical, but any larger projects, not so much. In my situation, my property became part of the flood plain a few years after I bought it. You can imagine that isn't a really nice selling point, so I think I'm gonna have a hard time offloading it when it comes time, especially in this market which is flooded with cheaper foreclosure opportunities. Really, my property's real selling value went down even though the tax appraisal value keeps climbing. So basically I feel "stuck" here until I've paid enough down to compensate for the market and crappy location, yet still get some kind of profit from it.