Real Estate: Buyers trespassed and moved in early. |
- Buyers trespassed and moved in early.
- Lender sent a mortgage commitment letter yesterday. Today I receive a change disclosure stating the down payment fees have changed (+4000$) and the down payment greatly reduced. It also states that it is an FHA loan, when I was approved for a conventional.
- Having problems with a new construction house that we signed a contract on before it was finished.
- How to inherit fathers property if I have 2 other siblings
- Those “how much house can I afford” calculators...
- Seller suggested a 6 month contract from now
- Talked with a Mortgage Broker that I liked but she got weird when I asked how she gets paid, what her fee is or what percentage they take. She didn’t give me a straight answer and it was the only time talking to her where she didn’t seem upfront with me. Normal? Red flag?
- Inconsistency in Appraisals - is this normal
- Feel free to disagree (amateur market forecast)
- What is the craziest/weirdest thing you’ve ever been asked to explain from underwriters?
- How to keep an eye on plans for a building?
- I got $20,000 in the bank. Is that enough for a down payment on a house in California?
- How to politely tell a realtor you're going with someone else?
- How to find a rural guesthouse to rent?
- What are some things to ask the home inspector?
- Advice Needed - Obtaining Lien Release
- Unable to Close
- Unhappy with our realtor and getting more so every day.
- Have we done anything wrong, and what should we do?
- New construction- can I ask for extra slab of granite?
- Bill for a title search several months after a failed closing
- Trying to buy a house with a close friend.
- Possibilities for a Jumbo Loan in CA?
| Buyers trespassed and moved in early. Posted: 09 Oct 2020 04:48 PM PDT See previous post for detailed backstory. Y'all... We told the buyers agent that they did not have permission to move in prior to closing. It was a back and forth all day and it was very clear that the answer was "NO". Apparently they "thought of the house as their own already". Well, actually, it isn't until closing. Their agent sent an early occupancy agreement yesterday offering zero dollars a day with zero penalties for not closing. No thanks. Denied. Turns out that their realtor gave them the lock box code anyway and they started moving in this morning! We went by tonight to check the mail one last time and what do you know... there are people IN MY HOUSE. The very people we clearly said couldn't be there. My husband called the cops. I called my realtor. My realtor said the other realtor takes full responsibility. Ok great. He didn't apologize btw. Cops show up. It's a civil matter and cops can't make them leave because the realtors are our proxies and the buyer's agent said it was ok.... with no signed agreement. WHAT?! They did leave several hours later but apparently tried to leave with the key. I am so over this. What a shady POS. The buyer's agent is the broker so we won't be complaining to him- what's the next step? A state real estate commission? (Tennessee btw) How on earth is this not criminal?! What a zoo. What a freaking zoo. Stay safe out there. Update: we have contacted his broker (apparently agent is not the broker, my agent was incorrect) and he says we are entitled to compensation. He will contact the agent and call us back. I am not interested in hanging up closing or asking for anything unreasonable. We will see what the broker says and go from there. We just need to get to Tuesday and get everybody sorted out. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 10 Oct 2020 07:08 AM PDT What issues will I see if this loan is now an FHA? Inspection period is long over, I plan to close the next couple weeks. EDIT: I did call the loan officer who did not answer, and my agent who is trying to reach others at the mortgage office. [link] [comments] |
| Having problems with a new construction house that we signed a contract on before it was finished. Posted: 10 Oct 2020 05:37 AM PDT We have been having trouble with the house we are buying since about a week in. We walked through the house, before anything was installed. They had just finished drywall. The kitchen cabinets were in, and they were very nice. 3/4" plywood carcasses, and soft close on everything. The only things that we wanted to add were; an island, a pantry cabinet, a 2 car garage, and a turnaround for the driveway. For $28,000 he agreed to do all of these things, with everything completed by 10/9/2020....30 days from contract date. 1 week in, he started working on the house. They ended up finding out the land had restrictions, which you would think someone building houses for 30 years would know. He had to move the garage doors from the front to the side of the garage. He had just finished framing, so it wasn't a huge deal. We met with him to discuss this, and he showed us the property lines, which was half of what we signed on. That started a whole other dispute, that we got handled very quickly. Now, since our contract wasn't very specific, we are screwed. He is only going to concrete the driveway to the minimum distance it has to be concrete, and then gravel to the garage. The turn around to the very nice concrete driveway we had added, also gravel. The kitchen island is a different color and panel style as the other cabinets. It is just a 36" base cabinet with a top screwed to it. The island has the same drawer slides you find in low end mobile homes, and the whole thing is thin particle board. The pantry matches the island. The pantry is going to be on the same run of cabinets as the nice ones, that are an entirely different color. We just had our home inspection yesterday. He said it looked like they did a good job on framing and everything, and then it looked like a new person did everything else. The dishwasher is installed sticking out an inch past the cabinets. The drawers for one of the bathrooms vanity hits the trim, so we can't even open them all the way. The trim is off about a 1/4"-1/2" in some spots. They cut the pieces too short, and just stuck them up anyway. We asked our lender if we could close early, since our loan was pretty much done 2 weeks ago. They replied that the builder needed 5 more days to finish. It's funny that he told our realtor that the house was done. That is why we had inspection scheduled. I got to talk to his crew he had out there. They said he only has them working for a few hours in the evenings on it. They still haven't sided the garage, ran electrical, ran the driveway to it ..or the concrete portion poured. We are set to close 10/16/2020. I will just have to push it back if he isn't finished. I wish there was any recourse for me since he has went extra slow, cheaped out on add ons, and quality. He was very nice until the lot size dispute. After that it seems like he is just dragging his feet in hopes that we drop the place. I have to live with the Mother-in-law if this falls through. Please pray for me. [link] [comments] |
| How to inherit fathers property if I have 2 other siblings Posted: 10 Oct 2020 08:30 AM PDT Basically I have 2 older siblings that are well off/married and have their own houses. My dad thinks only I should inherit his property after he passes away. We don't know anything about estates because he doesn't have much other than the house, he doesn't have a will or anything. What can we do now, I'm not sure how much it would cost and how the process will be? [link] [comments] |
| Those “how much house can I afford” calculators... Posted: 10 Oct 2020 08:12 AM PDT So I'm trying to figure out how much house I can afford. My wife and I make around $500-600k a year and we have about $300-400k saved up. We have just a few thousand in student loans she's paying off this year. I'm using these calculators and they are all over the place. One tells me I could buy a $3.5 million dollar house while another says $1.5 million. Should I even bother with these calculators? Is there a hard and fast rule to how much I should spend? Instinctively, I capped off my budget at $1.5 mil but there's a REALLY NICE house I'm in love with for $1.7 mil that I'm wondering if I should consider. [link] [comments] |
| Seller suggested a 6 month contract from now Posted: 10 Oct 2020 05:03 AM PDT Interested in a house that is overpriced thanks to NYC flight. It's worth 350 but they want 415. Went to look at it and thought about it for a few days. Decided to go see it again, but the seller said no not unless I'm willing to put an offer that they'll accept and then wait 6 months for them to move! So the seller put their house on the market with nowhere to go... it is obvious they only did this on a whim presumably to take advantage of the hot market. I could only imagine this being a win win for them and a pure lose for me if I accept... unless I put in a lowball offer and it gets accepted. The kicker is that... are house prices going to keep going up and up? Is this "overpriced" house actually a steal when 6 months from now houses that are 1 hour from NYC like this one will be inflated to over half a million? Any opinions and advise on this? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 10 Oct 2020 09:54 AM PDT |
| Inconsistency in Appraisals - is this normal Posted: 10 Oct 2020 09:01 AM PDT Hi everyone. We purchased a home in 2015 that is a split level. In the inspection, our inspector noted that it's possible our house wouldn't appraise as the 4x2 it was because of the split. We expressed concern to our agent and lender and they schedule our appraisal. Everything went through and we appraised as a 4x2 and 1658 square feet. Flash forward to 2020. We converted some unusable garage space into livable sf and a half bathroom. Same lender appraised house as a 3x1.5 and 1399 square feet (with the addition of 200 square feet). This is based on no longer including in the appraisal the "below grade" part of the split level (which was included in 2015). This has changed our ability to refinance the construction loan as intended considerably and now we are stuck with both loans instead of the refi intended. Additionally, it's frustrating because we obviously were using the original appraisal to make major life decisions and all we are getting from the lender is a shrug. Is it possible to get a different outcome with a different lender/appraiser? It seems our lender is giving us no answer for where the rules have changed and is leaving us dead in the water. Would love any help or direction from the good people of reddit. If it's relevant: my husband and I have never had gaps in employment and both have credit scores >815 [link] [comments] |
| Feel free to disagree (amateur market forecast) Posted: 10 Oct 2020 08:31 AM PDT But I have a hunch that we are not going to experience a crash, or even a dip, any time soon. Particularly in less urban/more rural settings. Those who are hit hardest by the pandemic are not (generally speaking) prospective home buyers. Many were already priced out of the market. Interest rates are forecast to remain low. I don't think the supply side is going to come roaring back - all of this uncertainty has been on a more existential level than any of us have dealt with before, and I think people will tend to stay put longer/not jump into the market as sellers. In addition: it increases motivation to buy vs. rent, so I think we will actually continue to see an INCREASE in the demand side as more people make the jump as first time homebuyers, particularly as people are more open to leaving expensive markets as renters to buy homes in more affordable areas. Re: rural markets - I think there will continue to be a net migration away from cities and into more rural/suburban markets (exhibit A: the more expensive, urban markets are the ones that have bounced back on the supply side. Read: people are selling their homes there and taking their money to other, greener (literally) pastures.) We are in California and are hearing stories of insane cash offers in more rural areas, and friends who are getting priced out of their own markets in more rural areas by silly bay area money as techies prepare to work remotely for the long haul. There continue to be high standards for qualification for mortgages, so while I anticipate some level of increase in foreclosures due to job loss, I don't think this will be dramatic enough to trigger a crash. The boom may slow, but I don't think we're at the peak. I'm also betting on this, as we're about to close on our first home.. I'd rather be in a home when a dip comes than houseless when the market climbs out of reach. Just feeling like getting it all out there. [link] [comments] |
| What is the craziest/weirdest thing you’ve ever been asked to explain from underwriters? Posted: 10 Oct 2020 07:38 AM PDT It seems like every time I go through underwriting, there's always something weird that gets flagged that I have to write an explanation letter for. My latest one was a payment I made through my bank app to my father. I had COVID in late August and therefore, my family was quarantined for weeks. My dad picked up and delivered groceries to our doorstep, and I sent him money to pay him back for the groceries. We went under contract on a house recently and this one time payment that appeared in my September bank statement was flagged as a likely installment payment to him. I'm sure some of you have some really strange ones. So, as the title says, what's the weirdest thing underwriters have ever flagged and asked you to write an explanation letter for? [link] [comments] |
| How to keep an eye on plans for a building? Posted: 10 Oct 2020 10:16 AM PDT We live in a SFH a few houses away from a busy commercial road that is undergoing some creeping gentrification and is also a couple of blocks from a specialty medical center (no ED). Across the street from us is a small 2-story, 10-unit condo building from the 1940s. It has a large yard with about 10,200 square feet altogether (this is a very large lot for our city). These are some of the least expensive condos in our entire city, selling for <200K. Our city is updating its master plan and hopes to increase density and development along the busy commercial road near us. Part of the plan will allow taller buildings on the road itself (up to 8 stories) and immediately behind it (up to 5 stories). Currently there's nothing taller than 2 stories on the commercial road. The land this little condo building is sitting on will be worth a lot, especially with proximity to the medical center and new development along the commercial road, and I suspect someone will come along to try to buy up the land and building in order to replace it with an apartment or taller condo building. The condos are all small 1-bedroom starter homes and I think there's only one long-term owner, so I imagine they won't get too much pushback from the owners. What's the best way to keep track of sales/potential plans for the space? Set a news alert for the address? Just keep an eye out for a posted certificate of demolition eligibility? I don't want to spend a ton of time tracking this, but I would also like to know ahead of time to start making plans to move ourselves if it looks like it's going to happen. [link] [comments] |
| I got $20,000 in the bank. Is that enough for a down payment on a house in California? Posted: 10 Oct 2020 10:09 AM PDT what are my limits price wise? Obviously I'm not going to be getting a $500,000 home. What is my price limit if I want a reasonable house payment? thanks. [link] [comments] |
| How to politely tell a realtor you're going with someone else? Posted: 10 Oct 2020 10:07 AM PDT We spoke with several realtors and they were all very enthusiastic and helpful but we can only choose one. How do we politely tell the realtors we are speaking to that we've chosen to go with someone else? (Small town, everyone knows everyone else type situation) [link] [comments] |
| How to find a rural guesthouse to rent? Posted: 10 Oct 2020 09:43 AM PDT I'm interested in finding a guesthouse on a farm to rent while in university but I'm having a hard time finding those kinds of rentals. Is there a website or something specifically tailored for this kind of thing? Sorry if this question is too specific! [link] [comments] |
| What are some things to ask the home inspector? Posted: 10 Oct 2020 08:58 AM PDT I am getting my first house inspected on Monday and was wondering what key things I should pay attention to in the home inspection and what questions I should ask the inspector. Sorry if this has been asked before. [link] [comments] |
| Advice Needed - Obtaining Lien Release Posted: 10 Oct 2020 08:05 AM PDT Looking for advice on obtaining a lien release on a second mortgage. Here is the rub: House located in Wyoming County New York. House is in my mothers and fathers name. Approximately 25 years ago they went through a bankruptcy in which the second mortgage was discharged. However, they never obtained a release from the second mortgage company. Shortly after the bankruptcy, my father passed away. The second mortgage is definitely listed on the title as we just completed a new search in order to sell. Since we do not have a lien release, we can't get it removed from the Title. 2nd mortgage company was GMAC, then DiTech, then I think Greenleaf? We just need to sell the house at this point and it's proving to be a difficult task. Any advice would be appreciated. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 10 Oct 2020 07:48 AM PDT Good Morning, Was supposed to close on a house yesterday in Florida. However 10 days previously we found out that the permit had not been closed out on a new seawall. Without getting too technical the drainage had to be modified. We promptly told our agent that we would not close until the permit was finished. The seller said it would be taken care of by closing. Long story short, the drainage was fixed(on the day of closing), but not inspected by the county. So the permit was not closed. We told the seller we would get an extension so they could finish the permit and our lender graciously extended the rate lock at no cost. The sellers agent responded that if we didn't close they would not extend our contract and would be keeping the earnest money. We refused to be bullied and did not close but sent them a extended contract to review. What do we do next and how can we get our earnest money back? [link] [comments] |
| Unhappy with our realtor and getting more so every day. Posted: 09 Oct 2020 09:06 PM PDT Before we listed our house, our realtor told us a few things we needed to take care of. There are some outdated (vintage) aspects to our home, but also a lot of high quality upgrades and updates. We also already moved out, so the house is empty and ready to sell (or rent). We did about three months of work on the house (on evenings and weekends and days off of work), but took too long with one specific upgrade we couldn't do ourselves and need to hire out. The contractor is out 6 weeks, so we got a quote and if someone put an offer on our house but had a problem with the vintage rooms, we were going to offer a concession. Our realtor ran the comps and said what he thought our house could sell for. We went right in the middle of his range. A few days pass once it's on the market with ONE showing and no offers. Ok, the realtor comes back with, "I just ran the comps (again), you are priced too high (like that's OUR fault?), AND you really need to do those other upgrades." Sure thing (eyes rolling at this point), let's find another contractor, luckily we found one who had a cancellation and should have the main thing up-to-date by next week. However, the house has now been on the market for over a week and the interest in it is dwindling rapidly. Tonight we got a text message from the realtor saying now we need to repaint our whole house (interior). We chose the existing colors because we liked them, they're not offensive, just not your "basic" beige or white. The one main room I'm going to paint, but would anyone on this sub seriously recommend painting every room in your house beige in order to sell it? Oh also, in the last five years, we have put a new roof on, installed all new Pella windows and doors, installed a new 16 SEER A/C, and several more upgrades. We wanted to put all this in the write-up, but the realtor told us no one cares about these things so he omitted them. Is that true, do people not care that they won't have to replace their roof for 25 years, or that their AC is brand new? I'm just getting really annoyed because he was hyping us up so much, and now he's saying our house looks like crap. I've never sold a house before, are these common tactics? Or is it reason to un-list the house and find a new agent, maybe try our hands at being landlords? If he doesn't want to let us out of our contract, would we have a legal route available? For reference, two months ago the house next door to ours sold for $220K, with a smaller main floor, an unfinished basement, and every room is completely outdated from the 1970s, old roof, old windows, etc. Our house has a finished basement, and the only thing outdated on the main floor is some dark wood trim & interior doors. Our realtor initially told us a high range of $275K, it he's now saying $240-250K. Which I'm honestly fine with and where I expected it from the beginning. Just annoyed that he hyped it so much and is now backpedaling and telling us we need to do all this other stuff after we've already spent three months working on it, and we're exhausted. [link] [comments] |
| Have we done anything wrong, and what should we do? Posted: 10 Oct 2020 07:03 AM PDT We just fell out of contract on an amazing but seemingly overpriced property in a hot sellers' market. This is our second time walking away under contract in this market. We're trying to calibrate our expectations but want to know if we're doing anything stupid. Also, I can't stop thinking about this second house and keep fantasizing about making another offer in a few months... but of course we can't necessarily count on the interest rates working out so well, or the house not being sold by then, or the sellers being more reasonable. We recently made an offer on a house listed at >$1.2m. This is a second home for the sellers and would be for us. We value it mostly for the phenomenal location; the land value is probably $500k-600k. Our plan was to live in the house and otherwise rent it out for roughly five years, not cash flowing but getting the principal down to land value before building something better that takes advantage of the views, light, etc, and is safer and more energy-efficient. We'd use that new home for rentals too when not occupying it ourselves. Our agent, who has decades of experience and RE leadership roles in this area, thought it was overpriced by at least $200k. We nonetheless made an offer a few days after the house went on the market for *over* the upper end of our comps but still nearly $200k below the listing price. The sellers countered with $75k off listing price, and we went up $20k--obviously still a big gap. The listing agent apparently told our agent that he thought our offer was good, but the sellers turned it down anyway. According to the listing agent, the sellers feel zero rush to sell and are content letting the house sit on the market through 2020. A week later, we find much better financing and make another offer. The house had been shown a few times in the interim, but there were no other offers. This time we offered $150k below listing, and the sellers counter with $125k below listing. After some back and forth, we met them there, probably losing some credibility in the process. Incidentally, the house is listed as having "x" bedrooms and coming furnished. Under contract, things don't get easier:
We ask for a reasonable reduction in sale price or credit corresponding to the cost to increase the septic, fix the window, and mitigate radon (we'd like to do last ourselves because EPA limit is stupidly high). We also ask for the depreciated value of the (some designer) furniture they wanted to take and the opportunity cost of our not being able to rent the house as an x-bedroom over the holidays, which would have fetched a premium. They respond by removing basically all the furniture from the exclusions but giving no other credits/concessions. (We also asked them to deal with a rodent problem, and they said they would.) So we're still almost $20k short. We decided to terminate the contract. The house was relisted hours later -- as an x-bedroom, and has remained listed as an x-bedroom for days. I can't stop thinking about it. Could we have afforded it, even without renting? Yes. But going $80k above the upper end of the comps was about all I could stomach, even in a rising sellers market. It is so much capital to tie up. Was this dumb? Our agent thinks the property will probably sell in the next few months. Maybe this was ridiculous, but we sent a note directly to the sellers a day after walking away, saying we were sorry we couldn't get the math to work, and that we loved the place. We also understood why they were looking for other buyers now, but if their priorities changed, we hoped they would let us know because we could move quickly. Basically, we didn't want to leave too bad a taste in their mouths. I am really nervous about paying too much. That happened with the first house I bought with my parents; alleged forced appreciation of $80k, but we were later underwater by $150k due to market shifts, excluding the negative cash flow while renting. I am also afraid of the house not appraising even if we do get the price to $150k below asking, which is still ~$80k above our realtor's upper comps. On the other hand, appreciation has been pretty good in this area even before COVID-19. We really like this land and can find very few substitutes after staring closely at topo maps and plats, although our agent assures us (maybe overconfidently?) there are other fish in this sea. Do we have a shot still? Have we blown it? What should we do? I am contemplating directly contacting a few neighbors with nice land to see if they might be more motivated to sell. Fundamentally, I think I struggle to decide how much to value this house as a pure consumption good (rather than investment) and what the corresponding price would be. Insight welcome. If you're wondering, our first deal mostly fell through because we had no legal easements to use the roads needed to access the property, and there were other easements on our property. Under state law we almost certainly could have secured the right, but we were worried about our neighbor's land changing hands and having to go to court over it. (The road goes through their prime building site.) Once again, our neighbors seemed clueless about the legal issues pertaining to their land. Our agent thought none of this was a big deal. We also had more trouble insuring the place and were afraid insurance would be dropped there after a few years, as those insurers had recently been dropping property owners in other states. The neighborhood, roads, and terrain were also less nice. [link] [comments] |
| New construction- can I ask for extra slab of granite? Posted: 10 Oct 2020 06:50 AM PDT I am getting a new construction home and the floor plan does not come with a kitchen island as standard. Granite countertops are standard however. I intend to build my own kitchen island when I move in. The thing is the countertops that that are in the kitchen will likely not be exactly the same as the countertop on the island. My question is, do you know if builders allow you to buy an extra slab of granite for your own use so that the granite pattern on your cabinets match your own kitchen island? [link] [comments] |
| Bill for a title search several months after a failed closing Posted: 10 Oct 2020 06:48 AM PDT In December 2019 I placed a cash offer on a cheap house I found on Zillow (in North Carolina). I wanted the quickest possible closing, which was 2 weeks. 6:30pm the night before closing I get a call from the dual real-estate agent that the seller filed for bankruptcy and now the closing can't go through. Closing won't be possible until 2021. I got a letter recently from the lawyer who was supposed to handle the closing, that said I owed $400 for a title search due by September 15. I called them 7 times before the due date to request additional information about why I owe money to them and I only received 1 call back saying someone would look into it. I got another call yesterday saying it was for the title search done in January....which I had no clue about. I didn't even know what a title search was. I didn't choose this office for the closing, the seller or realtor did. I never contacted the lawyers during this time or had any sort of relationship or agreement with them. It seems crazy to me that someone can reach out to a company to request a service in my name, without ever consulting me or telling me about it, and then send me the bill so many months later. To me this is the same as someone ordering a pizza in my name, dropping the pizza off in the trash, and then sending me a $400 bill for it. Am I on the hook for this? I never got any documentation for a title search or knew what one was before this. [link] [comments] |
| Trying to buy a house with a close friend. Posted: 10 Oct 2020 06:23 AM PDT Me and my friend both live in different states and we wanna buy a house in another state we are not in. How does this work? And would we even be allowed to do so ? [link] [comments] |
| Possibilities for a Jumbo Loan in CA? Posted: 10 Oct 2020 12:21 AM PDT I was pre approved for a 701K conventional loan as a precursor to looking at houses. Upon searching, I've found that any house I actually want will require a jumbo loan. When I went to my lender and asked if I could get approved he told me that nobody can get a low down payment jumbo loan at the moment, but from what I've seen online this isn't the case. So couple of questions; 1. Is my lender correct? 2. If he isn't, what other lenders should I look at in CA that are offering low down payment jumbo loans? Thanks for your time. [link] [comments] |
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