Real Estate: Locked 2.625% on a 30 year Jumbo today. Woot! |
- Locked 2.625% on a 30 year Jumbo today. Woot!
- Patience Pays Off - Locked in Sub 3% (2.875) rate today
- Our house selling & buying story
- Getting Bad News
- What is the demand for rental that's handicap accessible?
- Buyer pulled out, put back on the market and no showings. Time to panic?
- How much $$ does extra acreage add to home sale (for developers)
- What can I do to learn about becoming a real estate agent.
- Nervous about appraisal
- Much Love to all the GOOD realtors out there you know who you are
- Is my rate too high? (VA Loan)
- Advice to sellers: always ask if the buyer wants something before you just leave it
- Got a $6,000 bill for previous owner's unpaid property taxes... what now??
- Are we able to back out of this sales agreement (buyer)? - PA, USA
- Looking for sold price history of an address... Whether can I find that?
- My financing contingency expires in 2 days and the underwriter hasn’t spoke a word to me yet. Should I be worried about my earnest money?
- Converting commercial to residential in NYC?
- Why the obsession with not buying points?
- Refinance Appraisal BS and Questions
- The Tax Accessor website shows you who owns certain tracts of land, but the name online on the public website (Qpublic.net) can be manipulated, no???
- Is homeowner's insurance sublinear with value?
- Funny amounts on my final home sale commissions?
- When is a rate considered locked?
| Locked 2.625% on a 30 year Jumbo today. Woot! Posted: 21 Aug 2020 08:47 PM PDT |
| Patience Pays Off - Locked in Sub 3% (2.875) rate today Posted: 21 Aug 2020 04:31 PM PDT I reached out to a lender right before the announcement regarding the additional fees for refinancing that caused the rates to shoot ups. When I completed the application the next day, the rate had already gone up above 3%. I declined to move forward and the lender reached out to me today to offer a pricing exception back down to the original rate, about 10 days from our initial conversation. Excited to save some $$ [link] [comments] |
| Our house selling & buying story Posted: 22 Aug 2020 08:37 AM PDT No real question here, but just wanted to share our real estate ride. In January of this year, we decided we wanted to sell our house. We'd only been there 2.5 years and it was a very nice new construction home. But we realized we just didn't love the area (had originally chosen it because it was a cheaper area). We were nervous about selling because the area was more of a buyer's market (lots of new construction so plenty of inventory). We had a great agent who advised us to list in mid Feb to beat the spring rush. We went under contract in about 10 days at a price we were quite happy with. Then Covid hit the US. We spent the entire month nervous that the sale would fall apart. We thought the buyer might pull out, or lose his job, or have issues with appraisal. But it all went fine. We moved into an apartment with the kids and kept house hunting. Then in April, my wife's company suspended operations and she got furloughed. We decided to suspend the search. Of course, during this time, a couple of houses got listed that we loved. It was frustrating. Then in June, she got her normal hours back. We started the search again. Not much inventory out there, and we were being picky on both the house and location. Finally, a possible winning house gets posted on a Friday afternoon. Everything we are looking for and one of our favorite subdivisions. We are going out of town the next morning for a week, so we go see it that night (and we love it). The house gets a couple of offers over asking, but we put in the highest one ($5k over) and get the house. We closed yesterday and are very excited. It's definitely at the high end of our budget, but we got 2.875% on a 30 yr jumbo so the monthly payment works fine. It's just crazy how the timing works. If that house gets listed just one day later when we are out of town, we don't get it (we weren't going to buy a house based on a virtual tour). [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 21 Aug 2020 02:25 PM PDT So my wife and I began searching for a home at the end of June. From that time to about now we saw ~52 houses, made 4 offers only to be beat by cash or not accepted, and eventually just feeling beaten and downtrodden. Until we saw it. A house we fell in love with. We looked at the comps, made an offer that was below asking and it was accepted! Then our realtor told us even better news that apparently they house was completely furnished because the seller was out of state and didn't want to deal with the furniture! We were elated and overjoyed. We put down our deposit, and did our inspection that passed with flying colors showing a 2 year old roof, 1 year AC, and brand new plumbing and water heater. Everything was just looking up. Forward to yesterday, when we get a call from our realtor letting us know there was a snag. He had gotten a call from the title office letting him know there was a problem. The house was formerly owned by the tenants father who passed away four months ago. Turns out that in a rush to make sure the house could pass tot he seller without any issues, there were some mistakes made. We were told by our realtor today that the house will have to go under formal probate. We live in an apartment and they were very gracious to extend our lease by two months until the end of September, but I don't think that will be enough time for all this to be sorted, meaning that we are back to square one. This news just crushed us. I feel legitimately down and heartbroken because we had fallen in love with this home. What upsets us the most is why the selling agent would allow them to list this house without doing a title search, and making sure that everything was good. Now we are out inspection money and emotional attachment. I just wanted to vent because I feel angry, hurt, frustrated, and just sad. Thank you for taking the time to read this. [link] [comments] |
| What is the demand for rental that's handicap accessible? Posted: 22 Aug 2020 04:10 AM PDT I'm going to put some small rental cabins on my rural property in Arkansas, and I thought I would make the first one handicap accessible. The reason being that my mother is handicapped, and I would like for my parents to have a place to live if they ever decided they wanted to. That being said, my mother has repeatedly stated that she will NOT live in Arkansas. But of course circumstances change, so I thought it might be a good idea to do it just in case. So herein lies the problem. These are going to be prefabricated cabins, so I'm limited to a certain size. They're much like trailer houses in that they're built in a factory and delivered to the site, which saves you about 25% over on site building methods, and the quality is much, much higher than mobile homes. Anyways, I'm limited to a maximum size of 16x50. If I make the master and bathroom handicap accessible, I'm going to have to make some hard choices regarding a second bedroom. If I do a second bedroom, the kitchen/living space will be tiny. I would have to skip the dishwasher, do a small stove and refrigerator, etc. I'm questioning the logic of this, because people needing a second bedroom will most likely have kids, and I think they're going to want a fully featured kitchen. I just have a hard time envisioning a family of four being very comfortable in a minimalist kitchen. So if I make this handicap accessible, I just don't really see the logic in having a second bedroom. So if I do it, I'm thinking this would be for an older retired couple without kids. And if I do it that way, I can keep the handicap accessible features, and have a decent sized kitchen, breakfast nook, and living space. There will be a loft, too. It will be big enough to sleep one adult pretty comfortably, or two kids. So that would be attractive if they have grandkids come to visit or whatnot. So the total square footage on this would be about 800, not including the loft. And in that area, it would rent for about 1000 a month. So anyways, what is the actual demand out there for affordable rental that is handicap accessible? Is it high enough that people would be willing to make sacrifices in kitchen size? Or would there be a market for older retired people looking for a one bedroom plus loft kind of arrangement? Here's a sketch of my current design, with two bedrooms: https://i.imgur.com/pmWSq93.jpg As you can see, the kitchen/living situation is pretty small. It would require a small fridge, oven, not much prep or storage space. I would have to do an all in one washer dryer, too, which I know is impractical for a family because of how long it takes to do a small load of laundry. [link] [comments] |
| Buyer pulled out, put back on the market and no showings. Time to panic? Posted: 22 Aug 2020 07:45 AM PDT The real estate market in my area is fast. Houses go on and are active contingent within 24-48 hours. I listed my townhouse for sale a few weeks ago. We accepted an offer the same day. Inspection happened a few days later, everything went well. No issues. We went into pending sales status. Fast forward to Wednesday this week. The buyer of my house pulled out of the offer. They had 'issues' with the financials of the HOA I am in. It's a BS excuse, I'm on the board and our financials are fine. There's no issues at all. I bet they found something else they liked more and are using this as an excuse. It is what it is. So the townhouse goes back on the market Wednesday and there hasn't been any activity since. Zero showing requests. I'm getting a little worried here because I know how fast the market is. Is this common after something going back on the market? Anything I can do besides lower the price? [link] [comments] |
| How much $$ does extra acreage add to home sale (for developers) Posted: 22 Aug 2020 07:29 AM PDT My parents need to move to assisted living. Home is paid off in full and comes with about 2.5 acres of land in a densely populated suburb. Location is south of Boston, commuters' dream. Developers have inquired about it previously, but always to add land to an adjacent home that was for sale. Developer would have to clear the home to create access road and then have about three SFH homesites they could build. Since this is their last real asset they have, how can we maximize the return for them? And then try to protect it from the tax man as much as reasonable? Or is better to just list it and let the market decide? Land is in residential zone. The home is in fair condition (needs facelift). But the home blocks off land, making that 2 acres in accessible. If it is cleared, you would have exit/entry. What they have is 2 acres of woods in the middle of a big residential block, accessible only from their home. [link] [comments] |
| What can I do to learn about becoming a real estate agent. Posted: 22 Aug 2020 07:08 AM PDT Hey! I am 17 and inspiring to be a real estate agent. What can I do to be one step ahead when I turn 18. I really want to start learning [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 22 Aug 2020 07:04 AM PDT We are in contract for a home built in 1970. I paid the appraisal fee yesterday for the lender to order the appraisal, already completed inspection a few days prior. The inspection was fine, no real new issues turned up, we're pretty aware that the home will need some cosmetic work. Lender told me yesterday that depending on what kind of work it needs, the loan may not be able to move forward if the appraisal finds repairs that need to be done beforehand. He said things like missing tile, missing drywall are examples of what could cause the appraisal to come back needing repairs before closing. The concern here is that our seller pretty clearly doesn't have any money. The listing agent has mentioned multiple times that the seller won't be able to pay for any repairs, we love the house and area and the price was right for our first home. But now I'm nervous that something with the appraisal will come back saying things need to be fixed before we move to close. And I'm torn because based on conversations, we will likely need to pay for the repairs, or back out. This is definitely a ' cross that bridge when you get there' scenario, but this is our first home purchase, so I'm admittedly nervous about all of the things that can go wrong with the mortgage process and I just wish we could get to closing. [link] [comments] |
| Much Love to all the GOOD realtors out there you know who you are Posted: 22 Aug 2020 10:23 AM PDT As my home buying experience comes to a close I have a new appreciation for a good realtor. My advice is not to settle for a realtor. Interview them and don't be afraid to jump ship if you are not meshing. I went through 2 realtors before finding the one. The first 2 were not bad people just didnt wow me with their service or expertise. Not proactive, didn't educate me unless I pried, and more invested in the sale closing than our happiness. Then I found the one. It was like night and day. Energy, proactiveness, teaching us things at every corner. It was such a breath of fresh air to have someone really try to understand our desires and actually help find candidates. We browse redfin and zillow like hawks yet he surfaced one to us we didn't notice that ended up being the one for us. Came on the inspection with us, held the inspector accountable and noticed things the inspector didn't. Referred us to contractors and even helped with minor projects. He earned every penny of his commission and I will definitely be working with him if I sell this house in the future. My advice to home buyers out there is invest the effort to find the right realtor for you. You will spend a lot of time with this person over many weeks or months. Make it count. Good luck [link] [comments] |
| Is my rate too high? (VA Loan) Posted: 22 Aug 2020 09:56 AM PDT Some background: Still waiting on the seller to get back to me on the lowered cost due to appraisal coming in low. Loan value will be $220,000 (hopefully). Is it too late to negotiate? Should I try to get a different rate? Credit Scores: 760, 730, 670 - VA Loan Interest rate: 3.125 - 1.129% of loan (points): $2,766 (would go down a little with new offer) - Origin fee - $1,640 - Est closing costs $11,000~ [link] [comments] |
| Advice to sellers: always ask if the buyer wants something before you just leave it Posted: 21 Aug 2020 01:14 PM PDT We are finally closing on a house after a long search process and having put 13 offers on other houses. We just did a preliminary walkthrough 72 hours before settlement (we will also do one right before settlement) and the sellers left all sorts of shit: old TVs, computers, carpet, a dead mouse in plain sight, a used bong, a 1980's dehumidifier, over 30 cans (gallons) of latex paint, 5 gallon jugs of wood floor primer, used motor oil, numerous 5 gallon jugs of random metal bolts, and other crap everywhere in the house. They seemed surprised when we asked them to remove it before settlement and they are now scrambling and flustered to get it done. The house itself was completely filthy as well but we are looking past that. It's pathetic that someone wouldn't even sweep or wipe the refrigerator down after they move out. When selling our previous home, we cleaned our house top to bottom after we moved out to not only make a good impression on the buyers, but to have a sense of pride in how well the house was maintained previously. Advice: Always ask a buyer if they want certain things left instead of just assuming they do. This will save you headaches in the long run and save you from scrambling at the last minute to remove and dispose of trash, including hazardous materials. [link] [comments] |
| Got a $6,000 bill for previous owner's unpaid property taxes... what now?? Posted: 22 Aug 2020 09:52 AM PDT We bought our house in April 2019, everything is going fine with it except... I just got a letter from a law firm claiming we owe $6,000 in old property taxes. This absolutely isn't our debt (it even says it's from 2017 in the letter), but I'm scared we might be liable for it somehow? Here are some more details: -Online town property tax records show we have paid our taxes (2019/2020), but these records are missing for some years before we bought it -We did buy Owner's Title Insurance when we bought the house, but according to my records we only paid $119 for it and average prices for our area are more like $1000? So I'm hoping we didn't somehow skimp out on the wrong policy when buying? -The debt is owned by some big national mega-corporation, that's who is trying to collect through a local(ish) lawyer. So it's not like the town itself is coming after us, the debt was apparently already sold to this collection agency. Any help would be greatly appreciated! I've been surprised how little info came up during my last hour of Googling about it.. [link] [comments] |
| Are we able to back out of this sales agreement (buyer)? - PA, USA Posted: 22 Aug 2020 09:52 AM PDT Truly appreciate any coming assistance. Sorry for the novel! Background: My husband and I are moving cross-country to Pennsylvania to be closer to my parents and start our family. We've found a very cute house owned by an older gentleman who is looking to downsize. We've entered into a sales agreement and offered him quite the premium for his house. This is our first house so we're new to the process. We agreed to 60-day inspection period since he isn't moving out until November and we're on day ~30 of that period. Home inspector reported some small needed repairs but also some structural, electrical, and plumbing issues that was referred to as "potentially significant findings … requiring major expenses" in the report. We provided the report to seller, hired independent contractors to estimate repairs costs of only the most significant issues, and sent over the estimates. At this point the seller started being very mean to us, the home inspector and contractors we hired. My husband and I can get over someone being mean to us, but we have several concerns now and are considering backing out. Agreement details: Our agreement has clauses stating if the cost to repair defects to covered items (structural components, exterior siding, electrical, plumbing, and others) exceeds $1,000, we may void the agreement and retrieve our hand money or negotiate a compromise. If we choose to negotiate (we have), seller can A) fix until remaining repairs are <$1,000, B) credit us total repairs, less $1,000, or C) not correct or credit any defects in covered items. If seller satisfies A or B, we continue. If seller chooses C, we can void agreement and get hand money back. Questions:
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| Looking for sold price history of an address... Whether can I find that? Posted: 22 Aug 2020 09:39 AM PDT Hi everyone! I'm interested in making an offer on a home which is clearly overpriced and had been on the market for a long time + 1 year. I'm looking for the price that the home was purchased by the owners so that I can determine a fair price to buy it at. However, looking at the price history on the real estate sites only shows me the price changes over the last year when the house went on the market. Is there a site where I can better do this type of research? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 22 Aug 2020 09:25 AM PDT We are on the last step of signing the main documents with the lender before they pass it all on to the under writer. The problem is that they sent me someone else's paper work which I replied to right away asking them to correct and resend. The lender has not responded yet. As a result, the under writer hasn't even looked at anything of mine yet. On my contract, my mortgage financing contingency expires in 2 days. Should I be worried about my earnest money? (I may possibly be declined after the underwriter looks at my paper work god knows when) What are my options here? What actions would you suggest? [link] [comments] |
| Converting commercial to residential in NYC? Posted: 22 Aug 2020 08:33 AM PDT I've been hunting for the last six months but i came to the conclusion that maybe what Im looking for doesn't exists or is too expensive. My budget is not that low with 900K but nyc is full of cookie cut fancy apartments but I'm looking to buy a place that i can both use as photo studio and living situation. No walls. Small kitchen (not thousands cabinets and galleys) and done. Is it impossible to find a boxy place like a garage and transform it into residential? Or is it just a headache? wonder if this type of conversion [link] [comments] |
| Why the obsession with not buying points? Posted: 22 Aug 2020 08:25 AM PDT If I can get a great rate without buying points, that's great. But if I can buy a couple of points and add the total to the new loan, I'll save tens of thousand of dollars in interest over the course of the loan. If you plan on staying in the house for awhile, why wouldn't you buy points? It literally doesn't cost you anything. [link] [comments] |
| Refinance Appraisal BS and Questions Posted: 22 Aug 2020 07:29 AM PDT So I am currently going through the process of refinancing. And we are trying to currently argue the appraisal we just received because it is wrong but the bank is fighting us on it. Here's the high points so hopefully makes sense. 1) At the beginning we were at around 90% LTV 2) The bank requires us to be at 85% LTV in order to do the refinance. We also just want it to get to 80% obviously to get rid of PMI 3) House prices have gone up significantly in our area since we are living in a new development since we bought our house at $340k two years ago 4) This development we live in have multiple of the same exact house as ours in the area (about 2-3 Mile radius development). Also these houses of our type have more or less the same lot size 5) Our appraisal coincidentaly comes back at 85% LTV. ($357k) So the main comp they used was a house that is obviously the same exact as ours (can see on zillow and if you look on street view on Google). But somehow it says their square footage is 300 more than us because their appraisal or someone down the line screwed it up. Their house sold last month for $367k so should be pretty easy appraisal since we both have same house. But nope. We even called our builder and they said they've never made another size home of that type. We are now getting screwed over cause of the stupid adjustments and other bogus comps they're using. The bank says we can't fight that, is that true? Additionally, they said only way we can argue is to find different comps for them. So we have been trying to go through Zillow cause we don't have access to the system the appraiser used of course. We found our exact house that was bought brand new for $380k late last year. Our house is from 2016. Would a brand new house of the same exact house be good to submit for them to use? Side note, comp 3 they used was RIGHT NEXT DOOR to this house that is our exact house... Last question also. So they used a comp 4 in our report that didn't seem to be used in the averages to come up with our $357k Appraisal. Is it normal not to use comp 4? If they used comp 4 and averaged out the adjusted prices our appraisal would be $362k instead of $357k Sorry for a lot of questions and feel free if you want me to clarify. Just pretty ticked off as the appraisal process is just BS honestly and I paid for this crap service. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 22 Aug 2020 05:35 AM PDT For example I was looking at the property and it was listed on the tax accessor website as being owned by an investment company (LLC) and not the persons name who I know in fact owns it. So my question is that the owner information can be misleading right? Someone could choose to put specific properties in their legal name while others in someone else's name or someone else's LLC ?? How does this work?? I've come across a few examples of where this has been done. What if you needed to use the land owned by an LLC as collateral? How do you prove your the owner of that LLC? [link] [comments] |
| Is homeowner's insurance sublinear with value? Posted: 22 Aug 2020 05:02 AM PDT I'm buying a condo in a pricey market where the purchase cost is dominated by the area/land and not the actual building itself. Should my homeowners insurance be for the price of replacing half the house (it's a house divided in two) or for the actual property value? I assume replacing the house would cost less due to the land value. And I guess would this be reversed in cheaper areas where the actual building dominates the value? [link] [comments] |
| Funny amounts on my final home sale commissions? Posted: 21 Aug 2020 09:10 PM PDT I'm selling my house and have my closing in about a week and this was in the list of the entire deal from the title company: "Commission (Note: Commission amount $5445.00. POC Held By RE/MAX 100Realty $1,500.00) 3,945.00 Real Estate Commission to RE/MAX 100 Realty 5,250.00 Real Estate Commission to RE/MAX 100 Realty" The Final sale price is $175,000 and the commission I thought was 3% to selling agent and 3% to buying agent. So the 5,250 makes sense, but I can't make heads or tails of what the "Note" is supposed to mean. What "POC" stands for, and how they arrived at either the 3,945 or 5,445 amounts. Any realtors or real estate savvy people able to comment on what is going on here? [link] [comments] |
| When is a rate considered locked? Posted: 21 Aug 2020 10:44 PM PDT We got a loan estimate as initial disclosure a month ago after shopping around for a good refinance - came to 2.75% for a 30yr conventional for a coop condo which is amazing since coop rates are generally 0.75% higher than SFH rates. There was a major communication gap between the appraisal guy and the lender which has caused a month long delay in getting the appraisal back. We're still missing the appraisal and entering week 4 since the appraiser visited our unit. Do I still get the rate listed in the initial estimate? Lender had also added a line item in there as holding fee of 1800$ but had said that those fees wouldn't kick in unless we locked the rate and it took too long to close. The last word from the lender is that rates change daily and we'll know our final rate only after the appraisal and coop approval from the underwriting team. [link] [comments] |
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