Home buying thread

Cad_sl said:

Depends on the loan, some loans have PMI for life and require a refinance to get rid of it.

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FHA is a big one, you are correct. Thank you for pointing it out.

Well FHA MIP is slightly different. There's also the 'PMI free' type of loan where they either increase interest rates or capitalize it as lender-paid mortgage insurance.

I've had the shittiest luck with realtors. To date I've communicated with four. Three of them have acted totally disinterested, the third was nice but was driving 80 miles (one way) for viewings. I couldn't in good conscience keep having her drive those insane distances. This latest one was the listing agent for a home I came across so I contacted her. I ended up not liking this particular property, so I continued with her trying to look at other homes in her area. So far, she has barely communicated anything with me. She sent me a listing via email on Monday, which was screwed up showing a single sold property, I replied, and so far nothing.

Is this typical? I would think in this real-estate climate they would be knocking doors down to help. Granted, I'm looking for a very modestly priced home so I imagine their commission won't be anything to brag about. But, still, it's been very frustrating to feel like I'm "bothering" these people.

ShakyJake_sl said:

Is this typical?

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Yes, it is.

It's one of the few things everybody on rerolled can agree on.

Yeah with the advent of Zillow and other on-line sites realtors are basically car salesmen now. They exist for the sake of the rules force them to exist. There is no good reason you need them to just go to a house, unlock it for you and collect their commission check. This isn't 1990 we all know all the houses on the market and we know what we want and we know how to find them.

I'm not gonna say a realtor is needed... But the one we had was awesome. I think it's like any other job. They are feeling out how serious you are. If you're putting off a vibe of just shopping. Why do lots of work for a window shopper. Do you have a loan pre approval etc that you can show them? Also if you're using different realtors your name might be getting passed around. Our realtor knew every realtor we were bidding against/ bidding on their house. She'd pull out her cell phone call them up and ask if they had any serious offers yet etc.

I believe we signed a contract with our realtor that we wanted her to represent us. We found her through redfin. If you do that, you'll get a portion of their commission back. Which on our $300k purchase was $1500 back in our pockets at closing.

We wandered open houses first to see the market then got serious, all of the realtors we met during that process were asshats. That were used car salesmen. Oh those holes in the wall? Those are free air conditioning!

Also using redfin you can basically see listings that come onto the market the day they come out. The realtor can check on the back end and see if it is in processing or not yet. So you can save yourself a lot of time if you find the homes you are interested. Have the realtor check to see if they are already in negotiations. Also they can find info out like, it's in processing but the buyers can't get the financing and the sellers are still looking at offers etc.

Good realtor can save time or at least help a stupid person buy (any) house. It's convenience and having a personal secretary who knows the 'hoods at best, at worst it's like paying someone else 8 grand to herd their cats.

I feel like real estate agents are only really beneficial if you are moving to a city/area that you aren't familiar with. If you've lived in the same city for most of your life, there isn't much an agent can tell you about demographics, neighborhoods, school districts, amenities, etc, that you don't already know.

joeboo_sl said:

I feel like real estate agents are only really beneficial if you are moving to a city/area that you aren't familiar with. If you've lived in the same city for most of your life, there isn't much an agent can tell you about demographics, neighborhoods, school districts, amenities, etc, that you don't already know.

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They can't legally tell you that shit anyway.

I disagree.

A real estate agent cant legally tell you what school district a home is in, or info about the neighborhood(HOA? Pool? etc?)

joeboo_sl said:

A real estate agent cant legally tell you what school district a home is in, or info about the neighborhood(HOA? Pool? etc?)

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They can't tell you shit like "Is this a good neighborhood" or anything else you, as someone who is from out of state, would need to know that isn't easy to just look up. HOA, pool, all that shit is on Zillow and is information you'd need regardless of if you're from out of state or not.

Khane_sl said:

They can't legally tell you that shit anyway.

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You just have to know what to ask. At least in the south the better parts of town go with the better schools. They have code words. Like less than desirable school. Tough resell market due to the school here. Etc...

I bought my parents a house 6 years ago and the agent was not shy about which areas to avoid. They got down to brass tacks so to speak. They're not shy about saying stuff like "this area really wouldn't be a good fit for you, you really wouldn't fit in here" and stuff like that.

Can't you just look up the school district on Zillow and see how many stars it has gotten? It has always seemed to be reliable and accurate to me.

I would really rather get the opinion of someone who knows the area. Where I'm from lots of people send their kids to private school. That includes a lot who aren't what you would really consider wealthy, but everyday middle class. When the school district shifts, you send your kids to private school till you can dump your house and move. Some of them charge a tuition fee of around $300/month, which isn't exactly free but not like you have to be a milionaire to afford. But it gets you away from the really crap schools.