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Sorry Honda-fan. I hope things go well for your mom in surgery & recovery. 
Mother Of All Whore Threads Non-VIP Edition v.1
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Dad
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Really sorry to hear that @Honda-Fan
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Damn! Sorry to hear man.
I didn't mean to get into your personal info/family life but thanks for sharing. We are here if you need to chat.
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That sucks @Honda-Fan Hoping for a speedy recovery for you mom.
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Damn, sorry @Honda-Fan , hopefully treatments go well and she recovers quickly
Honda-Fan
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Sorry Honda-fan. I hope things go well for your mom in surgery & recovery.
Damn! Sorry to hear man.
I didn't mean to get into your personal info/family life but thanks for sharing. We are here if you need to chat.
Thank Y'all -- I appreciate the kind words. She was diagnosed in January for a small spot about the size of an eraser-head; That spot was a very aggressive form that was caught extremely early. I kinda kept quiet about it because when I would tell people, I'd be met with stories of how a loved one of theirs died from it. The chemo stuff was kind of a rollercoaster, but she's been finished with that for about 3 weeks now. The surgery is the end of the road, and she's been handling everything else pretty well.
On a lighter note -- is there any advice that y'all could give for a first-time house-hunter?
Janz3n
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If the housing market is anything like it is here, you'll want a time machine and buy a house about 10 years ago.
called the town today, found out that the pool company never got a permit to install my pool, thats cool right?
Honda-Fan
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My old boss-lady went through breast cancer and survived it. It's been about 3 years and she still has special doctors appointments for check ups and what not. But she semi-retired(i think fully retired now) and fully thriving now.
On the house front....yeah, a time machine would be nice. Save up for 20% down and stick to it.....no one wants to pay PMI(like burning money). Finance wise.....get your lender person to give you the figures on what your monthly payment will be and see if you can do all the normal stuff you do and still be able to afford the mortgage. Being "house-poor" isn't fun(unless you never leave the house....but still, lol). Everyone always gets approved for X amount but that doesn't mean you can afford it. Back in the day I was approved for $225k but I knew I couldn't afford that monthly payment for a $225k house. I could afford a $165k house, tops.
Location is KEY! Less commute is real nice. Being around places you frequent it a bonus. This is all up to you but after buying 3 places and working on the 4th....these 3 things become important in the long run. Something you sort of think about when picking a place/town but become real apperant after a year or so or living in a place.
As they say....a first time home buyer "wants is all" but you quickly realize you can afford it all. Make a list of what are the most important things to you in a home and narrow down your house choices from there.
Also.....if you don't understand anything in regards to the loan, house or whatever. Just ask! That is the purpose of having a realtor and why they earn thier commission.
If you want to toss some house listings my way or may have any questions......send me a PM or whatever. I don't mind. I frequent realtor.com to browse for shits and giggles and worked in the accounting "dept" for a real estate and property management company for 6 years.
Honda-Fan
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Damn Janz3n ridin' dirty with the pool :yikes:
Janz3n
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It's not illegal. Talked with the town they said either leave it without one as long as I have a fence and self closing gate and the neighbours don't complain or get one. It's in our contract with the shitty pool company so we're getting one. Man. I'm retiring when this pool is done.
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aside from the time machine like already mentioned, brace yourself for frustration, i think buying my house was more frustrating than getting my PhD, just a much shorter time frame
i agree with all of this except the down payment, 20% saves you from paying PMI but that cash in hand can be more useful especially as you settle your new home. When it comes time to write your offer the 20% down looks stronger because the seller knows your lender can play with the numbers and you can reduce the downpayment to offset the appraisal, essentially they think you have more liquid cash to play with.
My PMI is something like 60 a month, and you can get it taken out early if you do sufficient improvement to the house, some lenders even let you take it out with the crazy inflated prices of the market
My biggest advice is dont waive the inspections, if you really like or are really confident in the house set something like a 10k threshold on the findings, essentially you wont negotiate on little stuff, but roof/foundation or other major stuff can be negotiated or be a dealbreaker.
Check out the neighborhood at different hours, meet the potential future neighbors if possible
^^^ I agree with @Nomar06 and @ethlar.
Sometimes you can buy out the PMI too. I had 11% down on my house (I didn’t have $100k for the 20% down) and bought out the PMI with the lender for something like $6000 (PMI would’ve added up to $10-12k if left as a monthly payment). I was able to have the best of both worlds, less down payment and no PMI. Might be worth asking about if you need that.
But definitely have money to the side left over for projects even if they check out okay on the inspection. I had some plumbing issues pop up that were undetected by the inspection within a few days of moving in.
Sometimes you can buy out the PMI too. I had 11% down on my house (I didn’t have $100k for the 20% down) and bought out the PMI with the lender for something like $6000 (PMI would’ve added up to $10-12k if left as a monthly payment). I was able to have the best of both worlds, less down payment and no PMI. Might be worth asking about if you need that.
But definitely have money to the side left over for projects even if they check out okay on the inspection. I had some plumbing issues pop up that were undetected by the inspection within a few days of moving in.
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Def look into the PMI. The lenders lawyers have been working their little heart outs to screw the little guy. Our lender has said that there have been lots of changes in regards to PMI. He mentioned they won’t let you buy it out for 2-3 years regardless of the home values. They know the market has been crazy and changing their rules to make as much as possible if PMI is in the mix.
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Location location location is a saying for a reason. You can’t really move your house to another location, so make sure you’re happy with the location & neighborhood. Definitely keep some reserves on hand to do changes or emergency repairs. I just had an ac unit fail after 5-6yrs, and now I’m facing a 4k repair bill. Property taxes and home owners insurance are other things some don’t take into account. Those expenses tend to go up year after year, and can sometimes jump drastically. Mine almost doubled for this calendar year due to land and home values increasing so much. Pmi is definitely something to look at. I used to do photography for realtors and banks. I was constantly doing photos for people who were trying to get pmi taken off their mortgage & were thrilled to get rid of that expense. I had to take pics of every room as well as the exterior buildings so the banks could evaluate what the house was currently worth. If you’ve got any specific questions just ask. I follow real estate stuff pretty closely. A time machine would also be nice as others said. Interest rates have basically gone up 3x in just a couple years, and home values in most places have really increased.
Honda-Fan
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Thanks for your feedback, everyone! I hope I'm not bugging y'all too much -- I just don't really have anyone else to ask that will give me honest info.
I was reading an article that mentioned that PMI can be taken out by equity at a certain point; Is that what you're getting at when you mention the home improvements? More than likely, I won't have the whole 20% on hand, so I'll probably have to take on PMI.
Ah, okay. Well this kinda answers my earlier thing -- with the inflated market, I bet PMI was getting blown out of the water in like 12 months for homebuyers.
Oooh, I didn't know you could do this. I'll ask about this for sure!
Oh, so to have the PMI assessed after a while, I'd need a detailed appraisal, right? Is there a specific time frame that I'd have to do this in? It seems like my folks get an appraisal at around the same time every year.
As far as location -- the places I'm looking are just closer to home. I've been homesick for East Dallas for what feels like 15 years now. The houses there are affordable ('cause kinda rough in places, but still home), but are fixers for sure. I don't have a laundry list of requirements -- I just want a garage, basically. Everything else I'll take as it is.
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I guess as a follow-up for everyone-- I've been told about getting an FHA Loan versus a Conventional one; Is there any particular pitfall or catch to an FHA Loan that I should be aware of? I probably won't be able to match the 20% down on the range I'm looking at for a Conventional (About 250-ish), but I can probably do about 15%.
I was reading an article that mentioned that PMI can be taken out by equity at a certain point; Is that what you're getting at when you mention the home improvements? More than likely, I won't have the whole 20% on hand, so I'll probably have to take on PMI.
Ah, okay. Well this kinda answers my earlier thing -- with the inflated market, I bet PMI was getting blown out of the water in like 12 months for homebuyers.
Oooh, I didn't know you could do this. I'll ask about this for sure!
Oh, so to have the PMI assessed after a while, I'd need a detailed appraisal, right? Is there a specific time frame that I'd have to do this in? It seems like my folks get an appraisal at around the same time every year.
As far as location -- the places I'm looking are just closer to home. I've been homesick for East Dallas for what feels like 15 years now. The houses there are affordable ('cause kinda rough in places, but still home), but are fixers for sure. I don't have a laundry list of requirements -- I just want a garage, basically. Everything else I'll take as it is.
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I guess as a follow-up for everyone-- I've been told about getting an FHA Loan versus a Conventional one; Is there any particular pitfall or catch to an FHA Loan that I should be aware of? I probably won't be able to match the 20% down on the range I'm looking at for a Conventional (About 250-ish), but I can probably do about 15%.
Dad
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Where at in East Dallas? There is some really nice locations out that way
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You’d definitely want to talk to the lender, but if you believe you’ve got 20% equity in the home, you’d want to get pmi taken off. So, as home values increase, or you do upgrades to your house etc you’d want to maybe get it reappraised to see if you qualify. Sent you a pm about Bank of America first time home owner programs in Dallas. I don’t know the Dallas area well, so it may not be relevant to where you’d like to move.
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Taking PMI off early depends on your lender, some will let you do it quickly, others require the mortgage to "season" for a year or two before they'll consider it. Some have rules that there have to be improvements made and you cant have just bought the house in late 2019, saw the crazy prices 6-24 months later and gotten reassessed with the same property.
Conventional loans will let you do down payments as low as 3.5% i believe, i know you can do 5% cause thats what i did. FHA loans i've seen people say if you cant get 20% down you get PMI and you cant get the PMI taken off for the life of the loan unless you refinance to a conventional. PMI on a conventional loan has a set date it comes off based on when they predict you will have paid enough to reach 25ish% owned on the property based on the conditions when the loan started.
FHA loans have more and stricter requirements in terms of inspections, house condition, mandatory repairs. In competitive markets sellers have been known to view FHA loans bids as less desirable because of the headache.
Dunno if you've talked to anyone about the numbers but count on needing to bring at least 10% of the house value to the closing to pay all the origination fees, pre pay taxes, title, the remainder of your promised down payment, and whatever else to actually get the keys. Programs like the one @webby indicated can help defray a lot of those expenses if you meet their criteria.