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PIPBoy 2000 posted:Am I getting in over my head or does it sound like we can really do this? If you do decide to buy the house, make sure to at least go out and look at at least a dozen other houses. Don't fall in love with one house before you even start the process. Maybe I'm too cynical, but if it's been on the market for almost a year, there's probably something wrong with it or it's overpriced.
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Jun 11, 2009 01:43
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Well to update on my situation (mostly to fidget, haha) we made an offer tonight of $145k and 3% sellers assistance on the home in question (not a very aggressive offer, but it's only been on the market less than two weeks and it has received a bid). An hour later they countered our offer for an extra $1k (and at this point, oh well), so we agreed! Assuming the inspections go well (standard home inspection, water quality, sewer (septic), radon, and wood swarm thing) we'll be closing July 17th. Holy loving balls, we just bought a house! I've been in shock most of the evening  I don't know what to do, think, or say. It's crazy!
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Jun 11, 2009 02:16
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dreesemonkey posted:Well someone put a bid on the house we're interested in, today we're also submitting a bid. What we have going for us is our realtor also happens to be the listing agent, so the seller would get a slight break on their fees by going with someone through their agency vs. another realtor. Does the interest rate drop 1% or .5% with a 15 year compared to a 30 year? And to the people asking, I am very happy where I live, and my girlfriend is happy here, almost all of my friends live here in town.
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Jun 11, 2009 03:03
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I am currently buying a co-op and the sheer amount of information that the bank is requesting is ridiculous. I had to write four letters signed by various people at my job assuring them that the information I submitted to them is valid. Apparently credit scores of 780+, pay stubs, bank statements, and tax returns is not enough for them. This whole process is taking forever (45+ days for a commitment letter with ~30 conditions to be met) and the rates are constantly going up each day. Is there any end in sight to the rates going up within the next couple of weeks? I am at the point where I don't even give a poo poo about the rate. I just want this nightmare to end.
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Jun 11, 2009 04:03
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Ashley Robertson posted:I've been working about 5 years in publishing Forget all about buying a house for now. Spend the next year learning how to live on a budget and how to save money. Five years in the workforce and you have $1000 in savings? Houses are huge money sinks you have to have some reserves man. Also $500 /month of $62K gross a year is literally 12% of your take home income going towards student loans. That will put a HUGE dent in your ability to buy a home as well. This may not apply to you, but in general I'd be wary of buying with a GF/BF unless you are definitely planning on getting married in the future, especially if you cannot afford the house on your own. Realjones fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Jun 11, 2009 |
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Jun 11, 2009 04:30
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FidgetyRat posted:Also, don't forget wedding gifts.. That could help if you close after november, otherwise it could certainly come in handy for boosting savings or buying new utilities. glompix posted:My agent is telling me I'm making a huge mistake by not buy a house right now.
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Jun 11, 2009 04:54
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swenblack posted:You two could easily afford the house, but don't let the $8k rush your decision, since prices are still dropping. You're still awfully young and your life is going to change a lot in the next 4 years. I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record in this thread, but you should have some degree of stability in your life before you buy a house. Wait until you two are married and more established in your careers. To clarify a little, I live in central Iowa. We never really had a "housing boom" in the first place, save maybe for West Des Moines so housing prices haven't really fallen much because they weren't all that high to begin with. According to Zillow we are down less than .5% on average in the last year. We both really enjoy our jobs and living where we live. All of my fiance's family lives around this area and we see ourselves here for a long time. That's not to say we won't hate each other in five years, but hey, you never know right?
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Jun 11, 2009 05:08
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I'm not planning on buying a house right now, I'm just wondering if any of you can just sort of give me an estimate of when it might be a possibility. I live in London; I guess that's the main thing here. The average cost for an apartment is £300k at the moment, which is around 500,000 USD. That's just an apartment. The ridiculous prices here make it kind of hard to judge what is/isn't a good deal and how much you need to earn to buy anything here. Given that the combined income for me plus my girlfriend is going to be around £55,000 / $90,000 the salary times 4 rule means we can't afford an average flat here, which seems ridiculous. We have no debt at all, credit cards are paid off in full every month as well, although are savings at the moment aren't very high either. Given that my parents are able and willing to give us a loan for the deposit (which I would pay back at zero percent interest to them I assume), would it be at all possible for us to buy something in your opinion?
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Jun 11, 2009 12:09
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necrobobsledder posted:Wedding gifts may only cover so much of the cost of the wedding Oh I agree, but he said in his post that the wedding was covered, so I assumed that the parents were paying for the whole thing so all the gifts would be profit.
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Jun 11, 2009 12:41
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HankHill posted:Does the interest rate drop 1% or .5% with a 15 year compared to a 30 year? It looks like most places it's around .5%, which is kinda crappy if you ask me. I thought it would be more along the lines of 1%. Still, regardless. For someone who is pocketing $50k+ a year (cash), having your mortgage at $650 instead of $500 shouldn't be a stretch at all. Enjoy the fact that you're in excellent financial shape, sir.
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Jun 11, 2009 13:24
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PIPBoy 2000 posted:To clarify a little, I live in central Iowa. We never really had a "housing boom" in the first place, save maybe for West Des Moines so housing prices haven't really fallen much because they weren't all that high to begin with. According to Zillow we are down less than .5% on average in the last year. We both really enjoy our jobs and living where we live. All of my fiance's family lives around this area and we see ourselves here for a long time.
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Jun 11, 2009 14:06
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The Flying Clog Wog posted:I'm not planning on buying a house right now, I'm just wondering if any of you can just sort of give me an estimate of when it might be a possibility. Not sure on this since I don't know anything about London/the London housing market, but is it anything like Manhattan? People with normal salaries can't sniff a nice apartment in Manhattan. There are, however, surrounding areas that they live (in north new jersey, brooklyn, or queens), is there anyhthing like that you can look into? Just trying to point out that you're not alone--buying a condo in an expensive city is out of reach for most people.
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Jun 11, 2009 14:17
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Don Wrigley posted:Not sure on this since I don't know anything about London/the London housing market, but is it anything like Manhattan? People with normal salaries can't sniff a nice apartment in Manhattan. There are, however, surrounding areas that they live (in north new jersey, brooklyn, or queens), is there anyhthing like that you can look into? Yes it is very much like Manhattan. The average London salary is a lot higher than the rest of the country, but still nowhere enough to get an average London apartment, let alone a house. You're probably right that I will have to go further out, or go for an area that's a lot less nice, to find something affordable.
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Jun 11, 2009 15:03
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Ahz posted:As a Canadian, I have to wonder what all these 'closing costs' are for USA buyers. I don't know it just seems like extra ways to screw buyers when buying a home. It's a lot more than that depending on the province. In Nova Scotia we just bought a house for $200k and spent $6.5k on closing. Between lawyer fees, deed transfer tax (1.5%), disbursements, tank of oil, pre-payed property tax, blah blah blah. They say to plan for 3% of purchase price in closing costs here, and that was pretty accurate. PIPBoy 2000 posted:Tell me I'm not crazy for wanting to buy right now: Your situation is very similar to mine and we just bought a house @ $200,000. We don't have huge student loans, I am paying @200/mo on the little bit I have left to pay down, but our salaries are similar and we also had around $18k saved. I'd say you are in fine shape, but make sure you look at as many houses as possible. We love the house we bought but it was the first one we looked at (looked at about 8 in total and came back to the first). We fell in love with the location and the view and it was very hard to objectively compare the houses we saw afterwards. Every house we saw that was much bigger or had more features, we would come back to "oh but look at their terrible view, and look how close the neighbours are", like we had already made up our minds and were sabotaging any other viewing. In hindsight we probably should have seen more properties, and given it a bit more time to sink in.
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Jun 11, 2009 15:31
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Don Wrigley posted:You've decided against buying the house--and that's good--but I'm gonna use your post as an example in my "wtf is wrong with people" post. Feel free. It's a wonderful "lesson learned" sort of story. necrobobsledder posted:Your agent is working in his interest unless he's a good friend of sorts. There are very, very, very few people in this world that will give you genuinely good, educated advice whatsoever, and even smart, educated people can be grossly wrong. Don't trust anyone whatsoever when they stand to make money off of you in any way or there's enough legal tape that doing anything remotely nasty to you would result in a lot of pain on the other party's part. That's a lesson I learned a long time ago. The agent is a nice guy, (that's his job, naturally) but apparently an aggressive seller. When I told him "it's simple, I can't get financing, so get me out of this" he tried to scare me into staying with it by saying that the seller is a real estate attourney and that I won't be getting my escrow money back, even though the contract clearly says I should.
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Jun 11, 2009 20:15
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Rates are up again today 
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Jun 12, 2009 02:25
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RagingHematoma posted:Rates are up again today The Treasury dropped a touch yesterday lowering rates slightly. Hopefully we're at the top of the hill. Europe just got hit hard yesterday stock wise, so that might hurt the US today which might cause people to run back to bonds and lower rates. Cross fingers.
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Jun 12, 2009 12:57
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I didn't feel like gambling so I'm officially locked in at 5.75% from yesterday afternoon. Yay. Woo.
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Jun 12, 2009 15:01
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I'm glad I locked in at %3.75 when I did, problem being in Canada I can only keep that for 5 years. No sweet rear end 30 yr terms here 
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Jun 12, 2009 15:10
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Hopefully it continues, but the past 2 days have had some light losses to the bond yields. Today it seems to be falling fast, but that could very well change by the end of the day. Whatever the case, if it can continue to fall for 9 days I'll be a happy man.. If it can keep the pace through July 1st, I might also see a nice drop in my student loan rates as well.
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Jun 12, 2009 15:26
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Just came in here to vent. The wife and I have saved up 20% of the purchase price of a home, and are working with a couple of different lenders on getting a pre-approval letter so we can begin house-hunting in earnest. My wife's salary ALONE is enough that 40% of her AGI would cover the note on the house, plus property taxes and home-owners insurance. All the lender's must be busy as gently caress, because it takes DAYS to hear back from these people, and then you might only get "sorry this is taking so long, will have an answer in a few minutes" after which you don't hear from them for DAYS. Is the market really so bad that a DINK couple with 20% to put down is having trouble getting a loan?!?! This is also in a medium sized Texas town, that never really had a real-estate bubble to burst... *sigh*
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Jun 12, 2009 19:46
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^ That's odd, it may just be your lender. I was approved in about 5 minutes on an FHA loan.
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Jun 12, 2009 21:56
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Wreckus posted:^ That's odd, it may just be your lender. I was approved in about 5 minutes on an FHA loan. Right now working with two completely different ones. One is our bank where my wife has had an account for like 10 years. The other was a lead I got from lendingtree.com So I am correct in believing the people we are dealing with are either 1)overworked 2) stalling or 3) retarded ? Do you mind sharing the contact info of your lender? (Also could do FHA as we're first timers)
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Jun 12, 2009 22:19
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roadhead posted:Just came in here to vent. I went through a firm my credit union uses for an FHA approval and it took us five days to get approved. We did the online "instant" approval and got a message that our situation required a bit more research. When I finally talked to someone on the phone, they just said that they are really backed up with FHA loans because so many people are applying these days.
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Jun 12, 2009 22:30
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When I talk to my mortgage guy, he usually sounds like he wants to kill himself, so things are very busy at the moment.. They got hit very hard with refinances lately, and after the rates magically shot up a full 1%, they started getting tons of complaint calls and people freaking out because they just wasted 300+ dollars on home appraisals and now they can't refinance. Back in January when I signed up for my pre-approval, I heard by the next day.
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Jun 13, 2009 17:51
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FidgetyRat posted:When I talk to my mortgage guy, he usually sounds like he wants to kill himself, so things are very busy at the moment.. They got hit very hard with refinances lately, and after the rates magically shot up a full 1%, they started getting tons of complaint calls and people freaking out because they just wasted 300+ dollars on home appraisals and now they can't refinance. There's been some interesting commentary online about how the higher rates are going to kill banks that have been backlogged since many refi's haven't been able to lock because the loans haven't been successfully underwritten. Anecdotal to this, every time I've went in to talk to the woman who is handling most of my paperwork, the stack of refi's on her desk has been higher. Last time I was in there it was almost double. They recently put a notice on their website that they are only doing refi's for people who originally had a loan through them.
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Jun 13, 2009 21:40
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My boyfriend had me all excited about us buying our first house if he got the job he's trying for... but I just ran the numbers and I don't think we can afford it at all. He asked for 12 an hour, and I'm currently waitressing and I'm lucky to make minimum wage. On top of that his stupid student loans are costing us like 300 a month in addition to my 86 or so. I was so excited to find a place with a couple bedrooms and a little yard where I could have a few chickens and a beehive and a garden. Looks like most of the houses in the area this job will be in are at least 120,000 or so and most are way, way higher. Maybe they'll fall, and maybe they'll give him more money (if he gets the job at all, he currently makes 9 an hour) but my hopes, at least for now, are completely dashed. gently caress being poor.
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Jun 15, 2009 04:48
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Chajara posted:My boyfriend had me all excited about us buying our first house if he got the job he's trying for... but I just ran the numbers and I don't think we can afford it at all. He asked for 12 an hour, and I'm currently waitressing and I'm lucky to make minimum wage. On top of that his stupid student loans are costing us like 300 a month in addition to my 86 or so. Honest opinion is that if you are even discussing hourly rates don't even bother thinking about a house.
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Jun 15, 2009 12:46
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FidgetyRat posted:Honest opinion is that if you are even discussing hourly rates don't even bother thinking about a house. There are some careers, such as skilled factory workers and tradesmen, that keep the hourly rate mentality throughout their entire careers and can easily afford nice houses. Chajara's situation does not appear to be one of those cases, though.
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Jun 15, 2009 12:56
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Dik Hz posted:I know you didn't mean it this way, but that sounds somewhat elitist. Yeah, I know he was working at a factory for a summer job making 11 an hour and some of the guys there were making significantly more than that. But he's right, we're in no position to buy a house. We honestly may have been able to swing it relatively soon had I not lost my job back in April and had to take another one at significantly reduced pay, but at this rate we've lost a couple grand off our savings that would have gone toward a down payment. I guess I just thought that having nearly 10 grand and all but perfect credit meant that we'd be able to find a way. I just needed to vent, I guess. I'll be back when our income increases and we've built our savings back up.
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Jun 15, 2009 13:31
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Dik Hz posted:I know you didn't mean it this way, but that sounds somewhat elitist. No you are right, I didn't mean to insult trades jobs. When I read her post I was picturing a fresh out of school students trying to work as low-end supervisors at a retail store. If they are in an actual trade, that is much more stable, but I would still imagine them making more then 9-12/h. She stated she was a waitress at the moment and I was thrown back when she stated that his student loans were costing over 300/m and he was looking at a 12/h job. Maybe some more information about their career goals or future would help the house decision-making process a bit better. FidgetyRat fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Jun 15, 2009 |
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Jun 15, 2009 14:21
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I was going to create some sort of Ask/Tell thread about the subject, but I suppose this thread works just as well. Can anyone tell me what it's like to buy a home and rent it out? Is there a strong demand for it? Who are the typical tenants? Some guy who lost his house because he bought something he couldn't afford and needs a place for his family? A young family that wants a house but isn't ready to have a mortage? A military family who travels a lot? I'm only 20, but I have a great job and very little expenses (I still live at home), so obviously I'm in a pretty good position at the moment, but I work for a small company, and while I feel my job is pretty secure, it's still a little scary to get wrapped into a mortage at this stage of my life. However, I've got money in the bank right now, and I'd love to do something with it. I'd like to give it another year of saving before I would act on this, but I worry the housing market will rebound and I won't get as good of a deal. Any feedback would be appreciated!
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Jun 15, 2009 16:04
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Rick Rickshaw posted:Who are the typical tenants? Some guy who lost his house because he bought something he couldn't afford and needs a place for his family? That is exactly what happened to my sister-in-law. When someone loses their house and files for bankruptcy, their credit is shot and most apartment complexes or commercial renting facilities won't rent to them due to their bad credit, but they still need somewhere to live. Sometimes their financial troubles aren't even their fault but they still struggle to even rent, so private homes are often good in this case. But you could also get some drug dealer who trashes the place. You never know.
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Jun 15, 2009 16:07
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FidgetyRat posted:That is exactly what happened to my sister-in-law. When someone loses their house and files for bankruptcy, their credit is shot and most apartment complexes or commercial renting facilities won't rent to them due to their bad credit, but they still need somewhere to live. Sometimes their financial troubles aren't even their fault but they still struggle to even rent, so private homes are often good in this case.
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Jun 15, 2009 16:17
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I put down a $20,000 deposit on a 3 bedroom unit thats $401,000, to be finished being built in Feb March. I will need to borrow about $360,000 (which i cant borrow on my own) so my parents are going to guarentor the remander against a block of land they own. I clear about $900 a week, and am about to lose my job most likley. I dont need to apply for the loan though untill after the place is built. Im in Australia, and i signed the contract 4 days before they increased the First Home Buyers grant from $7000 to $23,000. Bad timing huh? Im happy and confident. Ill have another job by then, even if it is at lower pay. Ill have 2 other people moving in with me paying about $130 rent and helping with the utilities etc. Rates are about 5.5%, and ill be paying Interest Only for about 5 years. I currently rent with some other people paying $155 a week, so from what ive worked out ill need to find an additional $50 a week in my budget.
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Jun 16, 2009 02:44
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Rates were down today  Do you guys think we can keep this downward momentum after the whirlwind that was the last two weeks?
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Jun 16, 2009 02:57
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RagingHematoma posted:Rates were down today Well its not been luck. Every day whether it goes up or down always has a reason.. The past 3 days or so the bond market has done much better since the market realized that inflation and a weak dollar is not causing as much of a problem as they expected. Last week we had a successful auction of the 30-year bonds and russia gave us a thumbs up, so things started to improve. This week, the dollar did awesome (and actually caused stocks to tank a bit) which usually causes people to retreat into bonds which are safer investments which causes mortgage rates to decrease. We'll see if it can hold out, but yesterday Russia started pushing for a second "world" currency which could hit the dollar today. I think it will go down, but slowly.. My personal belief is we won't see it hit under 5% again. There's not much the Fed. can do to reduce them further as the Fed. interest rate is drat near zero already. Just imagine what will happen when they reset it in a few months.. Yikes. Edit: AP posted:Oil prices rose back above $71 a barrel Tuesday as investors picked up commodities after the U.S. dollar slumped on comments by Russian President Medvedev, who said the world needed new reserve currencies. Sigh.. Lets hope this doesn't hurt us too much.. Don't you love how one loving personal opinion from a world leader can gently caress up the entire world's stock market. Bankers are pussies. Edit2: Yep, Russia is officially a dick and bonds took a hit early on. Hopefully this will go down during the day.. Otherwise we're on the way back up. FidgetyRat fucked around with this message at 13:44 on Jun 16, 2009 |
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Jun 16, 2009 13:23
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urseus posted:I put down a $20,000 deposit on a 3 bedroom unit thats $401,000, to be finished being built in Feb March. Those numbers sound steep, but granted I don’t know what is customary in Australia. I’ll figure out your debt ratio and express everything as monthly. You make $3900/mo and your friends will be paying $1128/mo. This adds up to $5027/mo. Your loan payment will be $1650/mo. Therefore your debt ratio will be almost 33%, and that’s before condo fees and before utilities. This is an interest only loan too, for housing only, and assumes you will always have both bedrooms 100% rented. Had you gotten a 30 year fixed, which is more responsible, your payment would be $2044, your debt ratio would be 41%. This also assumes rates stay at 5.5%, however at least in the US rates have been creeping up as it appears the economy won’t barrel off a cliff and it sinks in the effect of the borrowing we are doing now will have on future rates. If your rates increase to 6.5%, which is not unreasonable, your debt ratio will be 39% for interest only, 45% for a 30 year fixed. I linked to the calculators I used if you want to play around with the numbers http://www.dinkytown.com/java/AUInterestOnly.html http://www.dinkytown.com/java/AUMortgageLoan.html
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Jun 16, 2009 14:30
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Just stopping by to empathize with you guys who haven't locked rates yet. I learned last week ours wasn't locked and had likely gone up and freaked out. Thank goodness we got it locked yesterday at 6%, which is what we were quoted a month ago when we started this process and is the number I have been doing all my figuring at. I breathed a big sigh of relief. We close Friday! I'm nervous. This new house is a $300 a month jump from what we are payng now in rent. My budget says we can afford it, but I still worry.
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Jun 16, 2009 14:45
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I'm just hoping things can hold together for another 5 days or so.. I'd be happy with a maximum cap of 5.5% locked.. After that I have a floating lock I can use within that 60 days to lower it farther if necessary, but I'd at least like the piece of mind that I have a maximum cap set.
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Jun 16, 2009 15:17
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