Another Clear to Close!

[Anonymous]

Very excited to hear today that my loan has been APPROVED and the HUD-1 is coming today!  4 days left til I get the keys to my first home!

A little (lot) background...

My wife and I wanted to apply for Virginia's FHA Plus program.  It's a standard FHA loan with the 3.5% downpayment, but the 3.5% is paid via second mortgage.  So the base requirement of us was to have closing costs handled and have an amount equal to 1% for "in case".  We started WAY out in advance looking at houses, ie 6 months out.  We had no IDEA how long the actual process took, only that it was best to get preapproved.  We took the Virginia FHA required homeownership courses and started collecting stubs last summer lol.

We finally took forth and contacted a mortgage rep in december.  We got preapproved fairly quickly, but received absolutely NO communication when asking questions and such.  Being impatient i quickly called another FHA approved lender, and they were the one i stuck with (thankfully).  One day after preapproval we found our home.  3 days later the contract was written and we had a settlement date.  THATS when things began to look bleak!  We discovered that my wife's spotty employment history (due to having kids and the cost of child care) could be factor and my bankruptcy of 7 years ago could also make us ineligible.  All this coupled with the fact that the home we chose was RIGHT at the preapproval limit, and any little thing was bound to make the whole deal fall through was entirely too stressful.  Needless to say we've been nervous every day during the processing/underwriting, especially since our current rent lease expires at the end of this month.

The nerve racking waiting period is now OVER!  Thanks to all of you for the information made available through this forum.  I'm a newcomer, but i'll be sticking around to see if any of my personal experience can help others through the CRAZY process of finding their new home

[foofighter74]

Congratulations!

[JM-AM]

Congrats

[BCullum]

My loan processor just told me we are looking awesome and should receive a clear to close tomorrow. I can't wait to have that feeling you have right now. Congrats on the home ownership post up some pics of the house!

[MovingForward_2012]

Congratulations!!!! :-)

I closed on a loan program very similar to yours through the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority (CHFA). 3% of my downpayment was rolled into a second mortgage that is $50 a month. All closing costs were paid by the seller so I didn't have to roll those into the second mortgage. The other 0.5% down required for FHA was paid for with my $2000 in earnest money. I also had to take an 8 hour long homebuyers course online but I took it over a span of several days. I learned so much about the home buying process. I don't know if Virginia's program is the same but CHFA actually services the loan for the life of the loan and they have better assistance programs than big banks to help you keep your home should you fall on bad times. We wouldn't be in such a nice home if it wasn't for the downpayment assistance, due to the downpayment and closing costs being so high at $350K. We can afford the monthly payment...just not the upfront costs. We didn't save specifically for this type of home because we were planning to buy the home we were renting but the landlord never addressed the repairs needed and that were provided to her 6 months ago and she kept raising the price. We had a lot of renter credits we were counting on for the home purchase so we were just focused on continually building our emergency fund. I'm so glad I walked away from that at the last minute as the financial burden of that broken house would have been substantial.

These second mortgage programs are really nice as it saved us money to be able to spend $5000 on new furniture and electronics. I always tell folks here that are scrapping for a downpayment to check with their local housing authority for downpayment assistance.

What is your interest rate? Do you mind telling us a little bit more about the home you purchased?

Congrats again! :-)

[Anonymous]

Congratulations!  Can't get enough of these today.  =)

[NewbieReed]

Congrats!

[Anonymous]

Yea the loans sound very similar.  The loans are serviced by Virginia Department of Housing and they have programs for deferred payments and such.  Very nice considering the cost of living and housing cost around here are SO high that even a standard FHA loan will at many times require 10k downpayment PLUS closing costs.

My interest rate on the first GFE was 3.156%.  Down the line it went up to 3.5 which put our payment over 1700 (my self imposed limit).  Luckily i was able to lock at a much cheaper rate (3.0%, 1500ish payment).

The end result is a 5br 3bath 2200 sqft brick home with a super large private yard which backs to woods and a large in ground swimming pool.  It's a perfect spot for us and a significant upgrade from my 1400sqft rental with window ACs and expensive oil heating.

[MovingForward_2012]

Wow! That sounds like a really really nice house! I am so excited for you!

You got a way better interest rate than me too. I got 4.125% because the interest for our program is income based so you get penalized for making more money...kinda like taxes. :-| But 10 years from now, I hope to be bragging about it. Haha! :-)

[Epcot]

That's great, Congrats! So exciting!