topic Re: My home buying thread!! in Mortgage Loans

My home buying thread!!

deg757 — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 21:27:46 GMT

For anyone that is interested, here is our home buying journey.

A little background into how we got into the mess we are in. My husband used to be the executive director for a non-profit that he dearly loved and was very passionate about. As small non-profits tend to go, they were barely scraping by. In 2007 he decided that he could no longer pull a salary and the business continue to run. So he stopped getting paid. I was working so we were able to feed ourselves at least. He thought this would be temporary. It was not. He continued working for free for three years. Hence, the horrible credit, collections, and awful payment history. I have managed in the last two years to pay off every debt we owed and rebuild my credit to the point we are now. We moved in with my parents, all of us. Me and my husband, our daughter, two dogs and a cat. It has been an awful two years.

Now my credit has recovered enough that we can hopefully purchase our dream home. I talked to the lender today, he will be pulling credit in the morning and will let me know. I am so nervous. Hopefully we will be well on our way to pre-approval tomorrow.

We have pretty much decided on the house we want. We fell in love with a house that was new construction but already completed. Someone bought it two weeks ago. We are going to talk to that builder about building the same home on one of the lots that is still available in that neighborhood. This house is 1,890 square feet, 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Oh, and it is perfect. It has everything on both of our wish lists. The only problem is the home that just sold went for $255k and we wanted our max to be $245k I am hoping that building our own might come out a little cheaper. But I would definitely still buy it at $255k.

Wish us luck! Hoping to have some good news tomorrow. I don't think we will have any problem with pre-approval as long as the credit scores are there. DTI and income are all good.

Re: My home buying thread!!

indecison — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 21:45:49 GMT

Good luck! Keep us posted!

Re: My home buying thread!!

deg757 — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 14:52:27 GMT

It is almost 10:00 am here. No word from the mortgage guy yet but he promised he would call today. I can't even concentrate on work right now.

Re: My home buying thread!!

ceva02 — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 16:22:45 GMT

Good luck and hang in there!

Re: My home buying thread!!

vlaw1084 — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 22:57:40 GMT

Yes hang in there! I think you can do it, you have gotten to this point, so you might as well get er done before the end of the year!!! I will be watching your progress :)

Re: My home buying thread!!

deg757 — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 13:27:19 GMT

So he never called yesterday. Big disappointment. He did pull the credit reports though because there is a new inquiry on my reports. Maybe today.

Re: My home buying thread!!

deg757 — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 16:09:29 GMT

Just talked to the mortgage broker. My mid score was a 645. Exactly what Equifax on here said. He is sending over a request for documents to verify everything I told him and he said there should be no problem with pre-approval. Should only take about an hour once he receives everything. Yayyyyyyyyyyyy!

For those of you who are curious, my TU score from myFico was 655 and my actual lender pulled TU was 663.

I can't believe this is happening!

Re: My home buying thread!!

indecison — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 17:48:14 GMT

Congrats!!!

Re: My home buying thread!!

scmami — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 10:22:59 GMT

Awesome!

Re: My home buying thread!!

teamduncan — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 17:54:50 GMT

Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: My home buying thread!!

deg757 — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 15:30:01 GMT

I finally got word today that we were approved through automated underwriting. I hate it when our lender says he will call Monday and then doesn't call until Wednesday. I am fine with waiting for him to get it done, but don't tell me you are going to call on a certain day and then don't. So frustrating. Meeting with realtor in one hour!!

Re: My home buying thread!!

scmami — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 15:46:39 GMT

Congrats to you! Now the fun begins...

Re: My home buying thread!!

How2increase — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 17:11:07 GMT

Wow!! Congrats that is awesome news!!! I'm in final underwriting, very nerve wracking!!!

Re: My home buying thread!!

deg757 — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 19:34:02 GMT

We met with our realtor at lunch today. We are going out to look at a bunch of houses on Sunday. It is so crazy to me that we have gotten to this point. I never thought we would get out of our credit problems enough to get a house.

On a side note, our mortgage broker and realtor both recommended purchasing a home that is 1-2 years old as opposed to building one because sellers are willing to pay closing costs and builders have not been willing to do so. Since we are doing FHA our closing costs are going to be around $6,000. They said the most they have seen a builder willing to pay recently is about $2,000 unless the house has been sitting for a while. Does this sound right?

Re: My home buying thread!!

indecison — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 20:54:19 GMT

deg757 wrote:
We met with our realtor at lunch today. We are going out to look at a bunch of houses on Sunday. It is so crazy to me that we have gotten to this point. I never thought we would get out of our credit problems enough to get a house.

On a side note, our mortgage broker and realtor both recommended purchasing a home that is 1-2 years old as opposed to building one because sellers are willing to pay closing costs and builders have not been willing to do so. Since we are doing FHA our closing costs are going to be around $6,000. They said the most they have seen a builder willing to pay recently is about $2,000 unless the house has been sitting for a while. Does this sound right?

Where do you live? I think all areas are different because our builder is paying 5K of my closing costs. They also picked up 13K in upgrades.

Re: My home buying thread!!

deg757 — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 20:57:21 GMT

We are in north Louisiana.

Re: My home buying thread!!

scmami — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 20:59:51 GMT

I'm in SC. We are doing new construction, but a spec home that's been sitting 6 months. At any rate the builder is paying $5k closing costs and $5k upgrades. For new builds it's $15k upgrades and $5k closing costs.

Re: My home buying thread!!

deg757 — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 12:30:53 GMT

We went out with our realtor yesterday. We saw everything in the two neighborhoods that we like that was within our budget. We found one we both really loved. My husband refuses to put in an offer before his father looks it over. So we made an appointment to go back today at 5:00 with his dad. Unless he sees something just completely ridiculously wrong that we missed, we will be putting in an offer. So excited!!! 3 beds, 2 baths, 1,866 sq feet. List price is $224k. It's 11k less than what we were planning on spending. Totally move in ready and in the neighborhood I was hoping for. I love it. Wish us luck for this afternoon!

Re: My home buying thread!!

ladyli22 — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 12:47:43 GMT

Sounds great! Hope the appointment to look it over again goes well!

As for the new builds, it may be dependant on area. We just closed on our home on August 1st and the builder paid 8,400 in closing costs and we also had about 30K in upgrades that were included.

Re: My home buying thread!!

deg757 — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:49:16 GMT

We ended up putting in an offer on that house. Now we are just waiting. I hope this doesn't take all the way up to the 6:00 deadline for them to tell us something. Our realtor said to expect them to counter with the full asking price because the house is so well priced and we are asking them to pay all the closing costs. I am ok with paying the full price because it is a really good price for the neighborhood and we think it will appraise well above.