Home buying thread

My 0 closing costs through penfed was glorious. I wouldn't go through Indian sky financial or some shit like that though

I refinanced the same amount that i owed on the previous loan and paid 0 dollars. The angle on mine may be that it's a 5/5 arm but it started out at 2.625.

So, I disagree.

Penfed doesn't resell loans, they service them for the life of loan. They are a credit union not a mortgage broker.

They do indeed do a 0 closing cost loan special from time to time that is actually legit and has the lowest rates you'll find, but they only do it on ARMs

It was listed and they paid it (about 1k iirc). I'm guessing under the assumption they get it back in interest, but I don't think it's a given that you'll pay higher than market rates if you find the right loan.

What zillow has is loan origination fee of $895, Appraisal fee of $400, then a lender credit of $1,294 for a total fees of $1. I know there will out of pocket expenses, like the appraisal but it just seems hard to believe that the total cost would be $1, when places like BofA will charge you thousands. These places have to be making money somewhere.

Ok, my wife and I are slightly in the market again to buy a new home. I say slightly, because we don't have a pressing issue to move from our existing home. Just thinking about the future. I have a few questions though.

Buying a property and putting a house there whether it had one previously or not - Has anyone done it? If so, did you feel it was worth the trouble?
Did you buy a modular house from wherever and have them ship it in, or did you pay builders to construct on the spot?

Buying a bank owned home or something that's currently in foreclosure - Again, has anyone done it and was it worth the trouble?


I'm pretty handy, and can repair almost anything inside of the house. Buying a property with a house that just needs some work wouldn't really be an issue for me, as I'm capable of doing the repairs. Aside from the time investment, is it worth going this route? Realistically, do you ever "save money" buying a house that isn't 100% complete from the get go?
Foreclosures and short sales.. Are they typically beat to hell, or maybe 50/50 with good quality homes that people just couldn't afford?

Thanks for listening to me form questions out of a vague idea.

The first thing you need to do is learn how to make your house a home.

Looks like I fail at navigating the various forums. Anyway, here's a question that I asked in Grown Up Stuff.

Xarpolis_sl said:

Ok, my wife and I are slightly in the market again to buy a new home. I say slightly, because we don't have a pressing issue to move from our existing home. Just thinking about the future. I have a few questions though.

Buying a property and putting a house there whether it had one previously or not - Has anyone done it? If so, did you feel it was worth the trouble?
Did you buy a modular house from wherever and have them ship it in, or did you pay builders to construct on the spot?

Buying a bank owned home or something that's currently in foreclosure - Again, has anyone done it and was it worth the trouble?


I'm pretty handy, and can repair almost anything inside of the house. Buying a property with a house that just needs some work wouldn't really be an issue for me, as I'm capable of doing the repairs. Aside from the time investment, is it worth going this route? Realistically, do you ever "save money" buying a house that isn't 100% complete from the get go?
Foreclosures and short sales.. Are they typically beat to hell, or maybe 50/50 with good quality homes that people just couldn't afford?

Thanks for listening to me form questions out of a vague idea.

Click to expand...

I'd say there are plenty of deals out there. The biggest problem is the average person has no idea how to spot them. For instance I know very little about cars. If I was buying a used one, it's likely I wouldn't get the best deal. However a mechanic by trade will be able to do better.

On a house it could be the same way, You're a plumber by trade and the house has horrible plumbing but otherwise ok? You can get a deal. The problem is, you end up having to rely on a home inspector to make the biggest purchase of your life. That guy can literally have 5 more houses to do that day and is doing it quick. Or could be very thorough and save you tons.

So I consider myself decently handy, so when I found a house that I was seriously consider buying. I then hired a general contractor, electrical guy, and a plumber to do a walk through of the house to find anything that was wrong. Then after I had all of that done. I had the home inspector. I was able to point out things to the home inspector so it went on the report. Then used the report to leverage the price of the home. A home inspector isn't a licensed plumber, electrician, and contractor. So like on my house, we found some natual gas pipes that weren't grounded. Electrical outlets that weren't grounded correctly. the deck was attached to the house incorrectly etc. All of these things allowed me to talk the seller down 10k in closing costs.

We were able to in, in a bidding war market, offer full price on the house. Then we invest about 1k in having people inspect the home. Then use that info to leverage down 10k. The reality is, I would have bought this house even at full price because 4 people inspected the house and all were like this thing is really nice, you should buy it. Had it been worse, we could have gotten some more money off, or averted a huge disaster. 1k to know you're making a sound purchase is worth it long term. As one missed thing will cost you so much more then that.

Foreclosures and short sales vary a lot by location. Not to say there aren't good deals, there probably are, they are just far fewer and far between than what they were last year and even more so before that. Banks have a tendency now to price them much more aggressively and at least in our area its been much harder to find something that makes sense. You can find gems still I'm sure but at least over here that has all been picked over.

Building. We've built 3 homes ourselves. What I can tell you is you absolutely have to watch them while they are building your home. What I can also tell you is that you'll never really get it right especially if its your first time building a home. IF you're lucky you'll get it close but you'll never really get it right because there will always be something that you'd change next time or some problem they'll fuck up.

The other thing about building is when it goes bad it goes bad in spectacular fashion. We built a Mc Mansion with Toll Brothers that was fucking massive and beautiful in every way but ended up being a total pain in the ass with roof leaks. Took them 5 or so tries to actually get the problems addressed and eventually had to reroof the entire house. Was a complete and total cluster fuck and something you don't really expect when you buy new but happens all the damn time.

Never had a modular home but they are built to local building codes. Better than manufactured but there is still a certain stigma with them. If you're going to do that you better be saving a ton of money instead of site built.

LachiusTZ_sl said:

The wife and I looked into the tiny house stuff a bit a year or so ago.

Few notes, do not but or build a non attached structure (mobile). Most tiny houses are small mobile homes. That is shit. Build on a slab like a human.

The catch: Most areas have a minimum square footage required for a residential dwelling. This is circumvented by the axel.

You might be able to get the same end around on that our a similar law by building it yourself. Where I live (the south) if you build it yourself, you are exempt from most building codes and requirements. Remnant from the old small farm days. This might include sub contracting it out.


About the previously mentioned zero financing etc, anyone have specifics? Penfed? Basically here is what I have. Put in a bid for substantially less than the appraised value of a home, it was accepted. I assumed I could tap the equity immediately for renovations, but it sounds like I have to do two rounds of financing to tap the equity? Looking for a work around, or a way to keep the closing costs under 5-7k. While keeping it a normal mortgage. It's doable on a 20 year investment note recalculated every five year (no thx). Anyway, been dealing with three bankers, and they all sound like it's the investment route, or multiple layers of financing.


Edit: oh, and there are 600-1200 square foot tiny homes. Gives you double the effective square footage, pretty neat homes really. And the concepts used are applicable to any home. The house I am messing with is large, and I will still be using some tiny house concepts.

Click to expand...

203k streamline seems probably the only possible way, 203k reg are tough to close. You'll get bent over backwards price wise on reno because you'll need to use a reputable contractor which only exist in the land of unicorns and occasionally doing custom work for rich people just to keep ahead of closing schedule.

Some lenders will do special conventional for specific things like one I looked at did a + pool loan but it sounds like you're looking for more stuff be done.

Khane_sl said:

Penfed doesn't resell loans, they service them for the life of loan. They are a credit union not a mortgage broker.

They do indeed do a 0 closing cost loan special from time to time that is actually legit and has the lowest rates you'll find, but they only do it on ARMs

Click to expand...

Just because they don't sell the servicing, doesn't mean they don't sell the loan.

LachiusTZ_sl said:

The wife and I looked into the tiny house stuff a bit a year or so ago.

Few notes, do not but or build a non attached structure (mobile). Most tiny houses are small mobile homes. That is shit. Build on a slab like a human.

The catch: Most areas have a minimum square footage required for a residential dwelling. This is circumvented by the axel.

You might be able to get the same end around on that our a similar law by building it yourself. Where I live (the south) if you build it yourself, you are exempt from most building codes and requirements. Remnant from the old small farm days. This might include sub contracting it out.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip on the building it yourself, gonna look into it.

We most likely are going to be building on her aunt's land, she has a backyard that they've looked into splitting the lot and it's fine to do. Probably going to do a foundation and all that so we don't have to deal with a septic tank and all that BS. Probably aiming for somewhere around 300 Sq ft, still pretty early on into this so still brainstorming and seeing options.

So we're just checking the normal housing market right now.

I went to a place last night that was enormous. 2600 square foot rancher, but in reality it's closer to 5000 square because the basement is the same size as the main floor. The only thing is the basement isn't exactly a basement. The house is nested on a hill, but it's a hill side to side. You park your car in the garage (basement), then walk up the hill to the left to get into the main house. Or you just go through the garage and up the steps. There's also no back door on the main floor into the back yard, however there are 2-3 doors located in the basement to get into the back. It's enormous.

On top of that, the house is very well (old style) built. Extremely thick joists and what not. And for a house that size, they want right around $300k. It's a steal.

The issue is mold. The ENTIRE basement stinks of mold. The previous owners have done a lot of work to the place to try and eliminate it, but the mold stench just permiates everything. Walking through that house last night has my throat feeling ragged. Such a shame. That house would be incredible.

I live in the south and LOTS of houses have mold. There's mold and then there's mold. If you are interested have it inspected and find out. It's not uncommon here to have that smell of mold/mildew in out of reach places or not part of the main house and it's not great but it's not harmful.

I actually have a mold guy that took care of my attic earlier this year, and he did a great job on both price and quality of work.

I gave him a call and asked him to check this place out and give me a realistic quote for how much it would cost us to clear out the mold and remove the stink. He's going to tour the place tonight.

This house is WAY too big for just my wife, daughter and myself, but if we could get it for $300k, I think the size is fucking incredible. I'd be able to slowly fix the entire place up and put it back on the market when we're eventually ready to move out and make one hell of a profit. But that's not the intent, but this place has such possibilities for us. Granted, it might be entirely the houses size that keeps drawing me back to it, but I'm still interested.

I think a lot of it just comes down to if the mold is mostly in just superficial stuff like drywall or insulation or carpeting, or if it has actually taken root in your studs or wood floor/sub floor. The first situation would be relatively easy and cheap to remediate, the 2nd not so much...