Home buying thread

Here's a fairly innocuous example from my own mortgage:


If I choose 2 payments or if I choose 1 payment and add $1,000 principal, what I'll see at the bottom of the screen is submitting for a $2,000 payment that will come out of my bank account. I think it's more about homeowners educating themselves on how their specific provider works (in this case, what 'number of payments' means) to avoid a bad surprise, which seems like good advice to me.

Khane , I'd argue that anyone who holds a mortgage and also puts money in their portfolio is implicitly 'investing the difference'. The difference between [email protected]% and 10yr@3% is a 75% higher monthly payment. I'd bet there are a lot of people--myself included when I started out--who can't field that gap comfortably, but they can still make the decision to take the extra $200/mo or whatever that they DO initially make over living expenses and sock it away in the S&P vs. paying down principal.

You might just be rich because you're frugal : ).

Well, if we're being completely and totally honest the large majority of Americans have to get 30 year notes because they are trying to buy more house than they can really afford in the first place.

Functionally, if you are trying to make a decision between a 30 year and 15 year you should take the 15 year if you plan on making extra payments (doesn't really make sense to pay higher interest rates on the 30 in this scenario) or just take the 30 and never make extra payments, put that extra money into a brokerage account instead.

I'm of the opinion that if you can't comfortably afford a 15 year you shouldn't be buying that house but that's also kind of an "extreme" opinion on home buying.

Nija said:

While I do like that this thread has gotten some needed traffic, i would like to point out this is Folgers, who is suddenly now a first time home buyer. Again.

Anyways, 15 year fixed vs 20 fixed vs 30 fixed, the few times I've gone through the process there was barely any difference between the rates.

In July 2020 I got in at 3.0% on a 30 fixed. The 15 fixed rate was 2.85%. Nowhere near worth the hassle.

Back in '07, the difference was like 4 tenths of a point. And they were still trying to push ARMs.

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This was my experience too buying in Dec 21. The rate wasn’t much different and 30 yr made more sense. I don’t think that has changed so I would be surprised to see people getting significant rate savings on 15yr esp with yield inverted.

I still agree with the sentiment though that if the 15yr payment is bankrupting you then you shouldn’t buy the house even on a 30yr.

Lanx said:

i happened to click on the zillow of my old ks house i'm still listed as the owner and i saw an updated google maps

this is what i left them with

(ok i admit it wasn't trimmed but i had already left and just paid a service, regardless look at that beautiful kbg)

updated

all they had to do was leave the the sprinklers go and mow, it was so thiccc weeds didn't grow

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You left them with nutsedge? You monster.

Sanrith Descartes said:

I believe he is assuming if you didn't specify it to go to principal that they were just assign it to the next payment paid in advance.

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Not for my mortgage but we had a loan from VW , using the online payment services there was no option to pay more to the principal but I set my auto payments to double.

My next payment showed $0 owed but the pay off amount reflected what I had payed minus the 1st month's interest. I called and they told me that it was OK to pay extra but if for some reason I didn't make the payment they would just take it from what I already paid and apply the interest. I thought that was shady and just paid it off after the required 3 payments.

5 or 6 years ago we took advantage of 0% no payments for 2 years on new windows. We set up auto pay in a separate account to finish 1 month early. The money has been building since, to about 50k and we decided to apply it to the principal of our mortgage.

I went to the online payment where I can put 8.5k daily and it charges me $0.54 per transaction. I called about a lump payment and they said sure np, but it was a $10 fee. I told them l'd just pay daily online and save myself $7. Frugal life FTW!

Kais said:

House was listed Thursday afternoon, my offer was in Friday lunch. By Sunday lunch there were 12 offers and they ultimately went with someone who is out of state and will likely be listing it as a rental. This is why there's no affordable housing. /salty af

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What was your offer compared to the one that was accepted?

Kais said:

House was listed Thursday afternoon, my offer was in Friday lunch. By Sunday lunch there were 12 offers and they ultimately went with someone who is out of state and will likely be listing it as a rental. This is why there's no affordable housing. /salty af

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Sucks. Every house I've bought until this most recent one was literally drive around see a few houses, find the best ones that meet everything and put in an offer, no big deal.

It really sucks getting outbid, happened like 6 times to me last time. The market is still a rotten mess.

Interesting little "quirk" of the market that Ive noticed, even though I dont actively use my realtor's license in a sales capacity. In the neighborhood I have a couple condo's in, Ive noticed that a few more of them have popped up for sale. Always interested in new rental property, I looked into them and these people have done zero renovations to these condo's that were built in the early 80's (maybe new carpet or LVP flooring, but same cabinets/fixtures and a couple still had era-specific appliances.) Listed at 225-350k depending if it has a basement or not. A bit up the road from them, there are actual stick built houses that are selling for the same amount. They have a Yard and one of them has a nice in-ground pool.

225k with taxes and hoa fee's included, 5% down, still comes up to around 1700/month if Im "mathing" right. The 225k condo has no basement, so a comparable that has updated features is renting right down the hill is renting for 1500. Both of my Condo's are renting for 1700 and 1800 (One is 2br, the other 3br, both with basements). Not only is it easier to buy a stick built home over a fucking Condo. But for the same money, you could avoid an HOA fee as well - making the house that much cheaper. At what point do the owners take a step back and realize their fucking condo is sitting empty because the realtor told them some retarded fucking price?