203 loan ? please...

[Anonymous]

I am pre-approved for an FHA loan. We found a house. It is $20,000 under are very safe max estimate.  It just needs a new paint job and flooring to be in pretty good shape. Our LO has not done one and said they are hard to do and closing is much slower. Is that true? Is it difficult? Any BTDT, or mortgage experts out there who've done this loan? We really like the house, but won't buy it w/o $$ to fix it up a little. We're only talking about $5000 or less for fix ups.  Also, what's the rate on the 203?

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

We are doing a fha 203k. The additional time to close comes into play when you have to have your contractors come in and provide official estimates. And then waiting for the appraisal and consultant (repairs) report. So when making an offer on the house just use a 45 day closing instead of a 30 day closing. Also the rate we got was 5.75% it would have been 5.37% for a regular fha. Honestly our loan guy told us in his opinion that if we were doing anything $6500 and under that due to the rate difference it would be better to just pay cash or put it on a credit card or something. He said there is only slightly more paperwork with this type of loan.

Good Luck

[Anonymous]

Actually we literally 5 minutes ago got our paperwork for the 203k portion and there is a line item that says repairs must be at least $5,000

[Anonymous]

If your repairs are $5000 or less, you can apply for 203b.  It doesn't take any longer.  I am closing 2/5 and it took my lender 7 days to do everything from application --> Exception Review Dept (had circumstance that need pre-approval) --> underwriting on 203b.  She did tell me if I want to do 203k, it would take 2 weeks.

Hopes this info helps.