B K R

We had been poking at the real estate market for over a year when we pulled the plug at end of last summer. In that time we went through 2 different realtors, placed bids on couple of properties mostly short sales & foreclosure. Much of it was fishing to see if we could get a deal @ great price. However since we didn't the deal we were looking for or never got to the bargaining table for a property that we liked as they were usually sold quick or had multiple bids, we decided to wait for a little longer. At that time it was a tough decision to pull out as we wanted the first time home buyer credit and low interest rates, at the same time ever dropping home prices also had us concerned.

After taking 5 months break, we took a relook at the market and were happy to find that the prices had been stable, the rates were still low and of course the tax credit was still alive. Unlike the last time, I have a feeling that the Tax credits are not going to get extended after June, plus the one of the main reason for the move was to get the Kids into a better school district, and with my oldest starting KG this fall it looked like time for another round of house hunting was ripe. So effective last week the "hunt" is on. Like they say third times the charm so hopefully it works out for us in round 3.

This whole process of viewing/researching houses adds quite a bit of excitement to the process. However I have learned my lessons on keeping expectations as reasonable as possible as deals can fall through even at a very late stage of the game. I will add updates as we move along in our journey in search of home own…. I mean home loanership

princelybug

iTrader: (16)

Hope things turn out well. The search process is very trying...it was for me at least.

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

^^ We're essentially doing the same thing. While we are looking at "regular" homes, we are focusing mainly on short sales and foreclosures. We are also looking at homes that still need some completion. Generally less competition with those since many people are afraid to finish them out. Since we do not have kids or pets or anything, we're more flexible and finishing part of a home doesn't phase us. We haven't officially started our hunt yet, but when we do we are starting with the homes that have been on the market at least 3-6 months. Figure we can go after them pretty aggressively at this point. We also have our eye on a few homes out of our range, but if they are still on the market after the summer, we'll go after those as well to see what we can get.

Good luck!!

gatrhumpy

iTrader: (1)

JB, the house next to us is for sale. Can't exactly find a listing, but it's almost 4K sq. ft for something like $242, three-car garage, and four bedrooms with bonus room. Come live next to me!

B K R

This time around we have limited our search to a few schools within a town so the pool of available property meeting most of the item in our search parameter is about 30, I have done my research over the weekend and identified about 3 properties that we definitely will be interested in and another 5 that we would like to take a look at. I am scheduled to view 4 properties for today evening, 2 of those are on our interested list, so it should be interesting.

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

haha. Well, we're looking to stay in the same area... plus, that would be a long ass commute!!

B K R

Well this round of house were no go, more viewings scheduled for wednesday. Interestingly all the properties including the 2 on our list were seriously underwhelming. One of them has been on mkt for 500+ days and with the shape it is in and the price that they are asking, I am not sure if the owner's do not want to sell or are not being educated by their realtor.

B K R

The third property on our interested list got pulled from listing yesterday. However the viewings scheduled for yesterday has 2 places that we definitely liked. Neither of them hit all the points that we wanted but both were good enough for us to be considered to put an offer on. Lets call them prop A & B, and this is how they stacked up

Price: A has been on market for 110 days and has dropped $20K in asking price but I still think they are overpriced by $10K. B has been on market for 100 days and has dropped $10K in asking price and I think is also over by $10K.

Location: A is closer (.5 Mile) to Shopping and other amenites plus easy access to highway, B is in an more established residential which is bit farther from shopping (2 Miles) and far from highway (6 miles)

Curb Appeal: A has beautifull land scapping with picket fence, but the sloping driveway was a big concern, B has a clean level lot without much land scapping, but we felt the house looked good from the curb. Plus it is on a corner lot.

School: A is not in our preferred school disctrict, B is in the preferred school.

Space: A is perfectly sized but with finished basement no easy scope of expansion, B is a bit on the small side but has potential in the unfinished basement

Value: A is decent value for dollar with the finshed basement. However I have a feeling that the reno was done w/o permits as the last few years assement do not reflect it. B is more in $/sqft but has brand new roof, mechanical, appliances, driveway.

So after discussing overnight "the Boss" & I have agreed to make house B as our baseline for comparision of other properties to be viewed today & tomorrow.

gatrhumpy

iTrader: (1)

Do I smell home theater and pool table?

I would go with B.

pmptx

Winner=B

dallison

sloped driveways blow. Ours is level and i won't buy one that isn't

chill_dog

B sounds better. Landscaping is as easy to fix as paint.

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

B. Come in with an aggressive offer assuming you're ready to move quickly... drop a couple thousand on landscaping, finish out that basement over time and you're golden

B K R

Thanks for the response everyone. Prop B it is !!!. Honestly the slopped driveway killed the prospect of Prop A. With the crazy winter we have here, vehicle could easily slide in icy situation which made it a huge liability, plus the potential of additional wear and tear on our vehicles.

Today there was a great prospect in one of the viewings. It was huge ranch with pool, sauna, oversized detached garage with additional powder room and a mud room so that people using the pool didn't have to track through the house. It was a foreclosure that has freeze damage. Properly renovated, it would have close to $50K equity in it, even in today's market. Although a great value, I had some reservations as it would put the property on upper end of my price spectrum, causing overages to be huge risk so we passed up on it.


The net result was none of the house from today could one up the House B. We are preparing an offer for B and if non of the viewings from tomorrow work for us we will fax it in.

B K R

Home Theater pool table
Most likely we will add a bath, a office room/bedroom, a laundry and may be a gym or work area.


Hmm..I always felt that it was a lot of sweat and lot of $$$ to make it look nice. Is there some insider secrets that I am missing.

We are preparing an offer price which would not come across as a low ball, but definitely something which would give a good bargaining range. However a lot would depend on what we get countered at.

chill_dog

It's one or the other, but not both. Two routes:

A - Pay someone to do it. It's expensive, but all you have to do is write a check.

B - DIY. It's hard work, but a lot less money than paying someone. I'd say half to two-thirds of what you pay someone is for labor. Go to a large nursery for your plants, not some small specialty garden store. When you go to the nursery, don't be shy. If you're buying two bushes, you're not going to get a discount; if you're buying a lot of trees and bushes, soil enhancers, and that sort of stuff, you certainly can. If you edge your beds, don't order blocks/stones/pavers from the nursery (if they have them), mark up is ridiculous; go to people who specialize in selling those things. Same concept on discounts applies here - the more you buy, the more you ask for. For this sort of thing, Lowes can be good. If you like what they have, their deilvery is a flat $50 fee (within so many miles). So whether you have a single tree or five pallets of pavers delivered, it's $50. If you want mulch, see if you can get it from the city. Here, the city takes all of the yard waste (trees) and mulches it. They turn around and sell the mulch for cheap by the truck bed (your truck) or delivered (dump truck, half or full, I believe).

I've done both, and there are positives and negatives with each (unless you're so flush that money isn't an object). My view on it (for me): if I was building a house, I'd go ahead and have it done; if I was buying existing construction, I'd do it myself.



Good luck with the offer!!

B K R

^^^

Thanks for the info. Never heard before about the city providing mulch, I am going to look into it.

chill_dog

^Could just be something they do here . If I remember correctly, it sprang out of hurricane Hugo. We had an inordinate amount of trees down that the trash people took months to clean up. They didn't know what to do with it all, so someone said mulch it. Then they figured they could make money by selling the mulch that they basically got for free. Even after everything was cleaned up, they continued to do it. They have to pay the garbage people to pick it up anyway (sunk cost), so getting some money on the back end is pretty much free money, plus they don't have to worry about trying to find the space to put the debris.

B K R

Oh the joy of putting offers when you do not have to deal with the bank. We put in offer on Friday, and after couple of rounds of counter offers we have reached upon a final price that both the sellers and us agreed upon. .

chill_dog

B K R

After the initial excitement wore off, the reality of being in contract has sinked in. We never came this far in our prior quest so this is new territory for us. So far, I have not received the signed contract, seems that the seller had some technical difficulity in sending it over. We have been told that we should have the papers by tomorrow.

We have decided to try one of the local banks for our financing. We are looking to get a 9/1 ARM @ 4% with 2/6 caps. Most of the day today went in collecting the information requested to start the Loan processing. Scheduled an appointment for Wednesday to initiate the loan application with the bank.

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

That's awesome. We bought some land on short sale end of last year and while we agreed with the sellers in a few days, it took ~3 months to close. Damn banks!

Good luck!!

B K R

Got the contract and completed the application at the bank. We are qualified for the 4% rate but have to pay .5 point as Credit score came in couple of ticks below 740. I have asked the banker to ask their lending to see if that can be waived. We discussed some of the closing costs, but will have to wait until we receive the official GFE to see how much the loan is working out to be.

At this point I'm not sure if I want to go rate shopping to other banks or not. The published rates for the other banks seem to be couple of points higher, but they might have lower closing costs too. I will probably wait until I receive the GFE from this bank to see if the numbers match the closing costs mentioned during the application.

B K R

House shopping is lots of fun whereas loan shopping is absolute stress.

Last couple of days have been busy with providing the bank with all the documents and explanations that they have been asking for and dealing with the curve balls they have been throwing. So far everything that the underwritter has asked for has been reasonable, however the latest request seemed a little too much. Since I am putting less than 10% down, he wants to see an additional 6 months of payment on top of down payment and closing cost before he will process the file further. Now I do not have that much cash in my acct so the lending officer suggested that I could get by if I could show that money as a gift from someone and then return the money back after closing as they will not escrow that 6 months payment.

So now I got to find a friend or relative who can lend me couple of grands for 3 weeks.

noshow_nogo

wow. I worked with Wells Fargo and the underwriter asked about the sources of several of my MMA and savings. He had me write a statement and get notarized that the funds weren't borrowed from a relative or family member and that they came from myself. I also had to give an entire year's statements history.

bank of america was the worst. They asked for a one year cashflow. I pumped one out and then they asked for 2 years... then I said goodbye.

totally agree on home shopping > loan shopping. goodluck

B K R

Arranging for a mortgage can give you ulcer or that's how it felt for the past week. When the lending officer called today I was wondering what more could the bank want, thankfully this time she was bearer of good news...loan has been approved.

B K R

We have the mortgage commitment and all necessary paperwork to schedule, however we can't get a closing scheduled as the Sellers attorney is not responding to ours to get a date fixed. If we can't get the closing scheduled for end of the week we will have to file a contract extension tpo avoid breach of contract.

B K R

Finally everything fell in place and we had very smooth closing yesterday, took all of about 35 mins.

B K R