Home buying thread

My wife and I have one savings account and one checking account together. That's it. We don't need more than that and it works for us.

I couldn't imagine having to manage 2 or 3 or 4 or keep track of what money is where but to each their own.

Our escrow account with the mortgage company has finally had it's first reconciliation, so we got back a big check from what the fuckers were overcharging us on our monthly mortgage payment for the last year. The fuckers are STILL overcharging us, but only by about $350/year, so not going to bother calling about that. Sure would of been nice to collect all the interest they were making off my cash they returned though /grumble grumble

I'm waiting for our payments to go up since our taxes increased substantially. We bought from a really old lady who had a freeze on her property taxes so they went up about $2500 but we are still paying based on the old amount.

Eyashusa_sl said:

My wife and I have one savings account and one checking account together. That's it. We don't need more than that and it works for us.

I couldn't imagine having to manage 2 or 3 or 4 or keep track of what money is where but to each their own.

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mint.com

wormie_sl said:

They just collected more than needed for taxes or/ and insurance. And this happened because the lawyer that One hired was more interested in finishing the deal that day than protecting his client and raising a rucus about being overcharged.

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Who hires a lawyer? This wasn't a multi-million dollar deal...

Tmac47_sl said:

Yeah, today.

Incoming rude awakening when this changes.

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Doubt it, her parents will be staying with us for the majority of the year once we have a Kid.
We both have six figure salaries and she has zero interest in working from home.

I don't disagree that if our situation was to change we would re-evaluate our bank accounts. That said, when that time comes it would get done. Our current plan is from our financial advisor (We save more by having him help us navigate tax code then he costs).

It's pretty dumb that we actually will pay more in taxes this year because we are married then we would if we were not married.

On to the topic of houses, anyone know a good company to purchase double-thickness honeycomb blinds from?

wormie_sl said:

Well if you had hired one you wouldnt have given the bank a free loan. How much are real estate deals cost wherever the fuck you are? In NYC a decent attorney charges 900-1200 for a real estate transaction.

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$350 here and I felt it to be very beneficial since this was my first house and he practically read out loud the entirety of every document I was signing and made sure I understood it.

OneofOne_sl said:

Our escrow account with the mortgage company has finally had it's first reconciliation, so we got back a big check from what the fuckers were overcharging us on our monthly mortgage payment for the last year. The fuckers are STILL overcharging us, but only by about $350/year, so not going to bother calling about that. Sure would of been nice to collect all the interest they were making off my cash they returned though /grumble grumble

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I find it amazing how far mortgage companies will let Escrow accounts get jacked up. I'm in insurance, so we constantly deal with mortgage companies from the perspective of trying to get them to issue a payment out of the escrow account, and man, it's just jacked.

I've seen customers of ours not have their insurance and tax amounts updated for YEARS by a mortgage company. Just last week I was dealing with a guy who was apparently $2200 short in his escrow account. He calls up his mortgage company asking why his house payment just jumped almost $200 a month, and to get him off the phone quickly they just said "your insurance went up". So he calls me all pissed off, asking why his house insurance went up $2200. I looked at it and his ENTIRE policy isn't even $2200 a year. So after some digging, multiple 3-way calls with him and his mortgage company, we find out that his mortgage company was still collecting his house payment based on tax and insurance prices from 2009. The mortgage company kept paying the new bills every year for property taxes and insurance, but never adjusted his house payment. So here he is almost 4 years later and his Escrow has a MASSIVE shortage.

Unfortunately, we see similar things many times a year. If you are a homeowner, keep tabs on your damn escrow account, don't just assume your mortgage company is figuring it all correctly.

wormie_sl said:

Well if you had hired one you wouldnt have given the bank a free loan. How much are real estate deals cost wherever the fuck you are? In NYC a decent attorney charges 900-1200 for a real estate transaction.

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Would have been completely useless in our case, and a waste of money. I'd rather give the bank a free loan for a bit than pay that much for lost potential income that wouldn't even be a fraction of the lawyer's fee.

I *have* been keeping an eye on our escrow - I've called them up twice this year already. I *knew* the escrow account was too large, and wanted to pull some of the money out, but they refused and said I couldn't until they did their reconciliation. They also gave me wrong info BOTH times I called. First they told me that the property tax bill for the difference between the old and new amount would have to come out of my pocket - then they went and paid it from escrow. It was a good thing I was slacking on sending in the check to the county because then it would have been paid twice and who knows how long it would take to get a refund. I was told the second time I called that they were only paying homeowners insurance from escrow the first year, and after that it would be outta my pocket. My renewal comes around and... escrow paid it. Not that I'm complaining that the escrow account is being used for useful things - it is. But fuck people get your act together with the info you hand out.

Now that we've been here (almost) a year, and I have my new property tax numbers, I have a very clear understanding of what the math is. Should I have been more on top of it from the beginning? Probably. But we signed all the final paperwork on a Sunday, my wife gave birth to our first son that Wednesday, and my realtor collected the keys while we were still in the hospital recovering (from a nicked artery caused during my wife's c-section that they NEVER EVEN TOLD US ABOUT until I made a big fuss about why the fuck they wouldn't sign for us to go home yet, but that's another story), so it was a busy time.

The plus side of it (should one choose to look at it this way haha) is that even though our property tax went up by about $1600/year, our mortgage payment did not (since we were already paying too much). That was an unexpected bonus I hadn't considered.

I've just settled my WorkCover case, and I will be paying for my new house entirely in cash. Do you think this will allow me to negotiate a little more on prices? (Buying, not building. Building terrifies me.)

Also...is a realtor on my side worth the cost? The remaining funds post-purchase need to provide for me for several years to finish my Uni degree and still buy food and pay the usual bills and added house insurance.

Any thoughts or advice?

For us? Yeah it was totally worth it - not least because the seller pays for both realtors. That said, I've no idea how the process compares in Australia.

Archangel_sl said:

I've just settled my WorkCover case, and I will be paying for my new house entirely in cash. Do you think this will allow me to negotiate a little more on prices? (Buying, not building. Building terrifies me.)

Also...is a realtor on my side worth the cost? The remaining funds post-purchase need to provide for me for several years to finish my Uni degree and still buy food and pay the usual bills and added house insurance.

Any thoughts or advice?

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Make sure you know the precise age of all the major systems in the house(heating/AC) if you're going to be on a fairly tight budget after you purchase the home. You won't want $5000-$10000 for a new furnace and AC jumping up and biting you unexpectedly in the first couple years that you own the house. Always make sure to budget a minimum of 1% of the house price per year for upkeep(and more like 2% if you want to be safe) and thats assuming none of the big stuff needs to be replaced immediately in the first couple years. That 1% upkeep might easily be just as much as your yearly homeowners insurance, a lot of people forget to plan for that.

SAIDIN_sl said:

I didn't want to start a new thread entirely for my questions.I'm buying a new house/car with a new income and I don't know what is safe to buy.
Just got out of the Army after 4 1/2 years Active duty, age 22. I'm going from a 34,455 a year income (tax returns, 2012) to a $45 an hour (100k a year) job. The new job gives me benefits in addition to my salary such as 25% of my income is added into an investment portfolio that I maintain 100% control of (in addition to my income), 6k a year in healthcare (cash), 3.6k in communication (laptops,cellphone) and 100% job security. The job is contracting for the NSA and the company owners are my parents, so it's a very stable job.

The houses I'm looking at buying with a VA home loan are in the 300k-350k range, is that too much or too little ? It's just my wife and I right now. I'd prefer not to rent anymore.
The cars I'm looking at are around 25-35k, one for myself and eventually one for my wife. I need a car that gets better gas mileage than my 05 Pontiac GTO. I will be traveling 90 miles round trip daily.

Zipcode would be 21666, around Annapolis Maryland.

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300k seems WAY out of your price range unless your wife also makes good money and/or you want to be house poor.

By the way, $45/hr does not equate to 100k/year. Even if you only get 10 days of vacation time a year and work 40/hr a week it would only be 90k/year. The reason I am correcting you on that is because A LOT of people get talked into mortgages they shouldn't agree to, yes even still now after the meltdown, because bankers and mortgage brokers feed them lies about what they can actually afford.

Do this, take the amount of vacation time you get a year and subtract that from 52. That will give you how many weeks that equates to you actually working (thus making your hourly wage, since you aren't salaried) and multiply that by 40. That will give you how many hours a year you intend to work then multiply that by 45. That will give you a better idea of what your gross annual income will be.

In your case, assuming your wife doesn't make a meaningful wage since you didn't include her income in your post and the fact that you are putting very little down (another assumption based on the fact you are taking a VA loan which typically are like an FHA), I personally wouldn't get into anything that costs more than $210k. And $210k would be my own personal high end in your scenario because I tend to want to live better as a whole than throw a huge majority of my income at a mortgage payment every month. This is based on my experience and knowledge of taxes and expenditures in Connecticut. I don't know what taxes are like in your neck of the woods.