So I sold my condo as most of you know. The original closing date was Mach 27th....but if I closed the day, I'd miss the $6500 credit by 1 day, so I bumped it to Monday the 29th and they agreed, so now I get the credit.

Question 1:

I'm closing on the house I bought on the same day. So I assume that the closing for my condo is in the morning....and the house closing is in the afternoon. My agent and attorney say this happens all of the time. So how do I schedule the moving? Do I do it the night before? What would they do with my stuff?

Question 2:

I initially started talking to a friend's brother-in-law for mortgage financing. But I found a little bit of a better rate and the closing costs are $2K cheaper. I feel bad because I started with one guy, but I'm gonna go with someone else. I never met with him and he never got any of my paperwork. He pulled my credit and gave me a good faith estimate and a pre-qualified letter.

Any input is appreciated.

 

Kind of confused on the tax credit thing. For the first time credit you need to be in contract by April 30th and closed by June 30th. Same dates for the second time buyer credit. So either of your dates (March 27th or March 29th) are both well within the date limits

1) Can't help you much here. We've never moved once... always multiple stops for lack of a better term. Each time we've moved we put stuff into storage, crashed with someone for a short period, them moved from storage to our new place. This is what we're planning to do this time around as well. Much less stressful and I do not need to rely on others (other homeowners, attorneys, banks, and so on) to determine my moving date. We can move out at our pace, then move in after we close. Doesn't matter if it's the same day, or weeks after we close... we can do it at our leisure.

In your case, my guess would be that you would have to be out of your place before you close on the sale... then your stuff would have to sit in a truck and can be moved into your place after you close on the buy side. That is, unless you work something out either with the buyer or your place or the seller of the new place.

2) Don't feel bad. It's your money. Go with the better deal. I would contact the guy you initially started working with and tell him the deal you got for the rate and the closing costs. If he can't match it... his loss. Go with the other guy at that point.

 

The $6500 tax credit says that you have to be in a place as a primary residence for 5 years, then if you buy after you've owned for 5 years, you get the credit. March 27th would be ONE day short of me being there for 5 years....my original close date on the condo was 3-28-05. One day meant $6500 for me!

 

^ Ahh, gotcha. The way you initially typed it I thought you were under the impression you were missing out on the credit b/c of the date limits since you did not mention anything about the 5 year thing. I'm with ya now. Glad it worked out.

 

As far as packing up, you need to be out of the house the day before to give the new owners time to do a final walkthrough. If your closing is really early in the morning, they may request to do the walkthrough the day before at which point you'd need to be packed up sooner.

Are you hiring a mover? If so, let them know your issue. Most will allow you to store your stuff on their truck for a day while the transactions take place. Make sure you get something in writing.

Case in Point: When we sold our first TH in 2004, we were scheduled to close the same day on the new place. The closing on the new place was delayed 2 days. Our mover told us before the move they'd have no problem keeping our stuff on their truck. Well when it was move back 2 days, they told us they couldn't keep it on the truck that long and we'd have to pay to have it offloaded into storage, reloaded onto the truck when we wanted it, they offloaded into our new house. A $2000 move turned into a $5000 move.

GET EVERYTHING IN WRITING....

 

 

Congratulations on your sale and on finding your next place.
You could look into POD storage solutions. You can have them delivered say a week before moving out and you have enough time to pack up. After closing you can have them delivered to your new place where again you will have enough time to unpack.

A co-worker was doing the same as you, closing on his old house in the morning and new house in Afternoon. However a short while before closing date, legal complications arose from his "Buy" transaction and his "Buy" dates kept moving and he finally cancelled the contract. Since he had his stuff in the POD all he had to do was pay the additional rental due to extention of POD storage, part of which he recouped from the seller and he suing for the other part as a breach of contract was done by the seller.

 

BKR has a good point.

 

Out here most people don't actually transfer possession of the property until 2-3 days after close of escrow for this very reason. Anything longer than that and you may have to pay rent on your old house to the new owners.

The PODS or similar portable storage idea is a good one.

As for the loan - go with the best terms. This is business. I did nearly the same thing, except without the associating. We had even done most of the paperwork, but they never gave me a good faith estimate. When they finially did, the rate and closing costs were above what I thought were reasonable. Got another referal and saved .25% on the rate and $3k+ on closing costs. If they are in this business, they know it's cut-throat and shouldn't be offended. If they are, they won't last long.

 

WELL FUCK FUCK FUCKITY FUCK!

I got a call last night that the sellers terminated my contract. Apparently the seller may have lost his job....something came up that they can't disclose. Its not a better offer, they are going to take it off of the market. So now I'm back at square one ON top of that, I now have a wife that is completely not in the mood to get out and go out looking because that one was "the one"!

 

Damn, that sucks. Sorry to hear.

I know it's tough... but never get emotionally attached to a property. I never fall in love with a house until we are closed and I am in it... b/c you never know. Again, hard to do... but something you should try to do.

Go with the suggestions above and get a POD. Shack up with a family member or friend in the short term and get back out there on the house hunt. There are a lot of great deals out there... you'll find yours

 

Something that worked for us when we had a deadline of finding a new home.... We had our realtor schedule a whole day's worth (10-14 homes) of viewings (all clustered in the same area). We did this on a weekend. You think you'd get overwhelmed and confused seeing so many on the same day, but it was pretty simple since you can easily rule out the houses that won't work and are really only left with one or two that catch your eye. Take a pen and paper and a camera (if they allow pictures) and that'll help keep things straight with the few houses that do interest you. We were lucky in that we were pretty sure we found 'the one' by the 4th house of the day and only viewed the others to compare. By the end of the evening, we put in an offer. This helped get the ball rolling for us instead of having a house search drag on for weeks and months. Of course, if nothing had worked for us that day, we would've gone out again the following weekend.

Also...totally not worth it to move out of your old place and into the new one on the same day. Doesn't make any sense. Consider taking possession of the new place 3-7 days ahead of leaving your old place! Bridge the mortgage. For us, it was a VERY minor fee to do this ($100 or less to carry both mortgages for that short time period). Scattering the closing dates allowed us to paint and clean up the new place before having to move out of our current place, and also gave us lots of time to move over some stuff we wanted to take ourselves (instead of the movers). There's way too much going on when you have to do a thorough clean of your old place, get the new place all cleaned up after the owners move, co-ordinate movers, put things in storage/take things out, etc. At least give yourself a day between homes.

My

 

So sorry to hear that. Can a seller do that without having any legal implications? Did you lose any money on Bank fees or house inspection? Was it a short sale, if yes then he may have saved the mortgage via a rate modifcation or similar plan.

With the way the market is you should be able to find another great deal out there.

Good Luck.

 

This is another reason why we stagger. Much easier to clean and get things in order w/o furniture in the way.

Oh and good call on bridging the mortgage. Didn't even think of that!!

 

Oh mannn, that sucks! Sorry to hear

I believe that as long as the contingency removal form hasn't been signed, either party can pull without any problems. The buyer gets their earnest money deposit back. At least, that's how it is in California.

 

I'm a firm believer in "everything happens for a reason".

Something better will come up.

 

^

 

In IL you have a 5 day attorney review period and anyone can back out at anytime for pretty much any reason. I had a home inspection scheduled, but had to cancel. They never cashed the earnest money, so I had them shred the check. What pisses me off is that it says the house is re-activated....if this is the case, I'll be pissed!

 

+1

Hang in there, man!

 

 

That's an interesting twist. Good luck on finding the replacement.

 

I'm wondering if that is just an MLS refreshing thing. If it's not and it turns out it really is still active... you should be pissed!! You should also have your agent look into it b/c there may be something unethical going on with the seller's Realtor...

 

I just checked the MLS again and its off.

Now I need to find a new "the one".

 

^ Whew. Good. Would hate to see you or the wife on the news

The one for you is out there. You'll find it... don't worry!!

 

That's a bummer that the contract was canceled, but don't let it get you down. While it's frustrating and throws a wrench in your plans, it isn't the end of the world.

Also, there is no such thing as "The One." You will find many houses that will work for you. Some will be better than others, but none will be perfect when you move in - unless you have it built custom. You might think they are until you live in them a while and find little things here and there. They're rarely things you can't live with, but the sooner you dismiss the notion of "The One," the better off you are.

 

We built our house, put everything we wanted into it inside and out, and now it's for sale b/c we want other things... so even building a home won't necessarily make it "The One".

So like moeronn said... don't get too caught up in it. You'll find another house you like in no time!!