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I'm currently trying to buy in the Northern Virginia area in close-ish proximity to where Amazon HQ2 is going to be, because it's also close to all the places I could theoretically work for the next 25 years. Last month has been absolute hell. 1) Every house will sell the same day - if you can't get a viewing the day it's listed, ideally early in the morning, you won't get to see it 2) You have to waive everything. That house is as-is and you had better hope you have the cash for a low appraisal 3) The sellers want to close within 30 days, ideally 25 or sooner 4) The sellers are going to ask for 2-4 months of living rent free before moving. It's not really an ask though, you can take it or you can gently caress off I'm currently 0 for 2 on offers, both times ~40k over asking (535 -> 575, other was 585 -> 625) and I lost both. First to a bid of +65k, second to an all-cash offer. I should note that I'm bidding on ~1500sqft, 2br/2ba 3-level townhouse-style condos. My coworker who is NOT looking in this particular part of Arlington is currently 0 for 10 on offers elsewhere in NoVA. Her last one was +50k over asking, everything waived, 4 months free rent, and buyer pays all closing costs. She did not get it. This poo poo is stupid. edit: Forgot to add that a house popped up on the MLS at 0034 on Thursday, I texted my agent at 0600, he got back to me at 0700 and said there were 8 offers already and we couldn't get a viewing until 1630. I said not to bother.
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Mar 21, 2021 16:52
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| # ¿ Apr 19, 2024 11:32 |
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It's me, the guy that's doing a +40k over asking, waiving (almost) all contingencies blind bid. In just three weeks I've become everything I hate. The only thing I can't waive is the VA appraisal, which is fine because that's the only thing I'm genuinely concerned about even though I have no logical reason to given the market. I'm still not going to get it, and I'll be stuck in this apartment forever.
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Mar 26, 2021 15:30
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Vasudus posted:It's me, the guy that's doing a +40k over asking, waiving (almost) all contingencies blind bid. In just three weeks I've become everything I hate. The only thing I can't waive is the VA appraisal, which is fine because that's the only thing I'm genuinely concerned about even though I have no logical reason to given the market. Ahahahahaha gently caress me I got it. Goddamnit. Now I have to fill out so much paperwork. Was one of three blind bids, other people bid higher. But I'm a vet, and the seller is a vet. And I had a really sappy buyer's letter. Probably going to close end of April, and my lease here is up 8 May. Couldn't be better timing. edit: house was technically on the market for approximately 6 hours. Vasudus fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Mar 27, 2021 |
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Mar 27, 2021 04:36
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My current rent is 80% of what my mortgage/hoa/insurance will be. I'm 100% VA rated, using a VA loan, and living in Virginia. So between all of that I don't have to put anything down, I don't pay PMI, I don't pay most closing costs, and I don't pay property taxes. The hard part was coming up with enough liquid for the other poo poo. Like putting 20k earnest money down, or being willing to cough up another 50k for appraisal shortfalls if there are any. I live like a hermit with hardly any expenses before the pandemic. It's absolutely stupid that despite getting a lot of money and perks from my disability and having my high-end MIC job paying me a gross salary I was only able to barely get my foot in the door. Legit another 60-90 days and I'll be priced out of the market here. It's loving stupid, prices on the whole in this market are up almost 30% from last year alone.
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Mar 27, 2021 15:52
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SchnorkIes posted:What's the deal with appraisal anyway? Like why is going over appraisal a big thing now? Shouldn't this be priced in to the appraisal? For me it's because the market in DC/NoVA has been absolutely supernova hot this last year and property values are hosed. Having to potentially cough up 50-70k *outside* of a down payment and other expenses is a tall order.
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Mar 27, 2021 21:43
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In my market (DC/NoVA) I was told that putting down at least 10k or more earnest was a requirement if you want your offer to be even considered. Sellers don't want anybody loving around. I put down 20k earnest for the house I just won, because I was told with the last house I lost that I didn't demonstrate I was "sufficiently committed" which is a load of poo poo. But I went with it anyway because this market is beyond hot, so even if they are just blowing smoke I can't risk it. Speaking of which, it's already time for back and forth with paperwork. They want me to mail out my earnest money to the title company but didn't provided me with the address or any wiring instructions. Great guys, let me just psychically link with the title company and divine their fuckin' information.
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Mar 29, 2021 13:30
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giogadi posted:Right, 10-20k in earnest is perfectly reasonable in my market. But we lost to 10 percent, which in my case was $50k. Bananas. Oh holy poo poo yeah missed that detail. That's nuts.
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Mar 29, 2021 13:41
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The way I figure it, the DC market is basically never going to stop. It'll cool down, but it will never stop growing. It didn't shrink during the GFC, it didn't shrink during the sequester, and it certainly hasn't shrunk now. The house I just bought for 580k was 120k in 2004. Amazon HQ2 is coming to my neighborhood on top of things. If you're in a desirable area with good long term growth prospects it's the best move to make.
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Mar 30, 2021 14:42
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When I was talking to a local lender he asked me what I was looking for, I said 625k was my hard stop. He kinda scoffed and said 'well, that's easy then, that's not even half of what we're prepared to authorize you for' and had a tone of disdain in his voice. Getting flashbacks to HGTV shows where they're like 'she's an apprentice candlewick maker and he puts shoelace eyelets in sneakers, their budget is 850k'
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Apr 2, 2021 00:10
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I got 2.65 on my 30yr fixed VA loan. Buddy of mine got 1.95 the month prior.
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Apr 2, 2021 01:00
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PageMaster posted:Was that with points? It's too late for if unfortunately as we just closed yesterday; locked 2.875 with lender covering points for 30yr VA. Had 2.25 with no pointsa couple months ago but that sale fell through. Nah, no points. Just straight up. Navy Federal offered 2.7, local lender offered 2.85 or so, I told them to do better, they offered 2.65. Which really surprised me, because I didn't really have a choice in the matter - Navy Federal takes 45-50 days to close and NOBODY in this market is going to wait that long. The local lender I went with told me that their entire business model is based on sniping VA loans from Navy Federal and USAA because of closing time 
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Apr 2, 2021 01:33
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Appraisal drama: my agent texts me to tell me there's a problem with the appraisal. I immediately drop what I'm doing and text him asking WTF. He spends the next 10 minutes at "..." typing a message. It's going to appraise at nearly exactly what I expected, well within what I had put IN THE CONTRACT as acceptable (I will pay up to 50k). Christ I was so loving mad. Goddamn agent nearly gave me a loving heart attack - I'm sitting there frantically trying to log in to my 401k to see what my options are for withdraw and everything. House is 580k. I said I'll do appraisal +50k, meaning 530k appraisal and above is fine. He says it's probably going to appraise at 565k and I'll know early next week. JACKASS. Vasudus fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Apr 3, 2021 |
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Apr 3, 2021 00:28
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DaveSauce posted:Er, that is a problem. Unless you're buying in cash, your lender is going to balk and you'll probably need to make up some cash to close. Oh yeah I know, I fully expect to toss in some cash. That's not a problem, and my agent knows this. When he says there's a shortfall I assumed he was talking about a shortfall *beyond* the 50k that I had already agreed to pony up in worst case scenario. But no, there was a shortfall of getting it purely off the purchase price.
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Apr 3, 2021 00:33
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I'm still waiting on my appraisal. Was told on Friday it could be as early as then (it obviously wasn't) otherwise "early next week" so hopefully tomorrow. I'm supposed to close on the 23rd so getting this done is starting to make me nervous.
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Apr 6, 2021 01:05
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Still nothing from the appraisal. Lender emailed me and said it's in underwriting and nothing to be worried about. Well guess what fucko, I'm worried. A little.
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Apr 6, 2021 22:59
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Appraisal came back, exactly where we expected after my idiot agent gave me a panic attack last week. Just have to cough up 15 grand to make up the shortfall.
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Apr 7, 2021 15:24
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Times are tough for inspectors with so many people never getting the chance to use one.
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Apr 8, 2021 01:04
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I passed on several houses that I wanted to see because I couldn't get a same-day viewing and I knew it would be sold before the end of the day. And they were. It absolutely sucks balls to be a buyer in a competitive market and I hope I never have to repeat this.
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Apr 10, 2021 03:41
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My house is 50 feet from two major bus lines, both of which will take me to every place I'll be possibly working for the next 20 years within 10-15 minutes door-to-door. Otherwise I just ride it a bit further to the metro. The real killer is transitioning between VA/DC/MD. It's...tolerable if you stay inside one region. But if you have to traverse that distance rip your free time.
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Apr 12, 2021 17:45
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I bought my house because I'm tired of renting. I want to put holes in my wall, I want hardwood floors, I want a better kitchen, and I don't want people above and below me any longer. I'm also buying because it's for me, to live in, hopefully until I loving die.
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Apr 12, 2021 20:34
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Pilfered Pallbearers posted:Ugh. Sup 'about to close maybe possibly' buddy. I close on the 23rd. I'm told it's in underwriting and everything is fine. It doesn't feel fine at all!!!
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Apr 14, 2021 04:23
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I went under contract 3/27 and I'm due to close on 4/23. I got my appraisal back at least, and I'm in underwriting. I haven't received *any* followup from my lender at all about additional questions or employment verification. So either everything is a-okay and my extremely boring, clear cut history has raised no further questions, or I'm not as far along as I thought.
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Apr 15, 2021 02:43
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Sundae posted:My guess is that 4/22 is going to be a very interesting day. Probably. I've already warned everyone I work with that I've got house stuff coming up and at any point in time reserve the right to drop off the grid for an undetermined amount of time. I'm hoping to get a cleared to close notice sometime this week but I think that's probably optimistic.
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Apr 15, 2021 02:54
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spf3million posted:It's tough not to have some FOMO when you see the average interest rate jump half a percent in a month then you realize that that just effectively reduced your buying power by $50k. Hate to try to predict the future but it weighs on prospective buyers who have been actively shopping for the last 4 months. Yeah. If I had jumped a month earlier I could have gotten nearly a full percent lower interest rate. But that's fine, you can't predict this poo poo. I don't know if it's technically FOMO but I finally went 'okay gently caress it, I'm buying and getting off Mr. Bone's Wild Ride of Renting' and figured now was as good of a time as any.
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Apr 15, 2021 15:55
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Just signed my closing disclosures. Guess I'm in the home stretch now.
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Apr 15, 2021 23:36
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My understanding is that there isn't really a bubble because it's not exclusively *people* buying homes - depending on which parts of the country and what price points we're talking about there's a big involvement of REITs. Everything on the "low end" in my area (meaning stuff like 1/1s or anything under 300k) is almost immediately being bought out and rented.
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Apr 16, 2021 00:27
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:I've read about this as well and I quite don't understand completely to have a fully formed opinion. On one hand you do want to have some housing stock that you can rent but what's stopping these companies from simply buying up everything and jacking up prices? That's what they're doing, at least in my area. Rents have gone up considerably despite the amount of available renting inventory going up as well.
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Apr 16, 2021 01:19
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I did appraisal shortfall of up to 50k. It came 20k short. Turns out I can use my earnest money for that, which happened to be 20k. So I should be cleared to close pretty soon.
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Apr 18, 2021 20:57
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Getting close to the wire. Final walkthrough tomorrow afternoon, closing noon on Friday. Lender finally asked for my proof of insurance and told me they already did employment verification. So I might actually be good?????
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Apr 21, 2021 16:23
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My lender is telling me that we're almost there. So probably get hit with a wire request for the closing costs tomorrow.
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Apr 21, 2021 21:55
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| # ¿ Apr 19, 2024 11:32 |
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Insurrectum posted:Look at that—appraisal came in exactly at sale price! Thank god. The DC market is insane and I had to waive all contingencies to win this bid, and that was the major remaining financial risk (pre-inspection showed no issues and the home is in turn-key condition). I wonder how much using a local lender who does not plan on servicing the loan played a part in that—unlike a national bank, it seems like the buyer/local lender incentives are much more aligned towards making sure the deal is successful. I was told up front that I can't use Navy Federal and expect to get a house in the DC market and I needed to pick someone else before putting in my first offer. NavyFed closes in 45-50 days (the mortgage guy from NFCU said this to confirm it) so I had to go with a local lender that could do it in 20-25. I went with McLean Mortgage.
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Apr 22, 2021 17:21
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