Made an offer...accepted! ----> a.k.a Home purchase venting thread

[Anonymous]

Got a call from the realtor today asking if I wanted to settle sooner. At first I was going to say no because I  was trying to keep it as close to the end of the month as possible to keep costs down but I buckled and said..sure! I couldn't help myself. So now we are tentatively schededuled for April 17th close. I gave notice to be out of my townhouse for June 1. We are going to spend the rest of April painting and cleaning and such. Then take the first two weekends in May to move. That will leave me two weekends to get back to the old place to clean so I can get my security back!  I didn't have to pay May's rent because they already had security and last month's from when I moved in and I also don't have a mortgage payment until June so I was able to give us that time to do stuff a bit at at time. I can't imagine trying to do it all at the end of April and having to still be in school too! Then end of May is going to be hard enough to be in a house full of boxes while I finish school. But once I am out on June 2nd.....look out! I can't believe this is actually happening!

[Anonymous]

Wow. Congrats to everyone. Things seem to be coming together for so many on this thread. Woo hoo!!!

Teacherhere, your plan sounds similar to mine. Provided everything goes okay (knock on wood) with my transaction I will close mid April and also go back and forth with stuff and clean/paint/upgrade the new place.  My son is in school till the end of June so we will stay here and go up on weekends. It will be tiring since it's 3-4 hours away depending on traffic, but well worth it in the end and atleast I won't have to rush in and out of both places!  

[valley_man0505]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Wow. Congrats to everyone. Things seem to be coming together for so many on this thread. Woo hoo!!!

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Yep, it looks that way.  I successfully closed on Monday!! It took over 4 hours, though!  The lender ended up being VERY picky with the gift funds from my fiance.  We had to make 3 trips to the bank to get the cashier's check to look perfect for them.  I am glad our bank was willing to help--we could have racked up a lot of fees for all the checks that were issued and brought back and reissued, but they never charged us anything.  Once we finally got that worked out, the lender had issues with how the taxes were worded on the Title.  It was quite the day.  At one point, we had been sitting in the conference room for an hour with no new news.  Finally, I had to use the bathroom.  The next thing I knew, someone was reaching over the stall to hand me another paper to sign, so my last signature of the day was placed while I was sitting on the toilet (I got to keep that pen ). 

Since the closing took so long, we didn't get much of anything done at the house Monday, especially since most of the rooms don't have lights and require lamps, which we hadn't purchased yet.  We thought we could a lot done on Tuesday, but, after about 87 trips to Lowes, we still hadn't accomplished much other than buying a lot of supplies, including paint for the living room, which we later decided we didn't like anymore because of how it looked with all the dark trim.  Basically, we got nothing done and now I had to go back to work today

Oh well, there will be many more days. 

[Anonymous]

Indeed there will be many more days...congratulations! all of this is very encouraging!

[MsKiwi]

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@valley_man0505 wrote:

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Yep, it looks that way.  I successfully closed on Monday!! It took over 4 hours, though!  The lender ended up being VERY picky with the gift funds from my fiance.  We had to make 3 trips to the bank to get the cashier's check to look perfect for them.  I am glad our bank was willing to help--we could have racked up a lot of fees for all the checks that were issued and brought back and reissued, but they never charged us anything.  Once we finally got that worked out, the lender had issues with how the taxes were worded on the Title.  It was quite the day.  At one point, we had been sitting in the conference room for an hour with no new news.  Finally, I had to use the bathroom.  The next thing I knew, someone was reaching over the stall to hand me another paper to sign, so my last signature of the day was placed while I was sitting on the toilet (I got to keep that pen ). 

Since the closing took so long, we didn't get much of anything done at the house Monday, especially since most of the rooms don't have lights and require lamps, which we hadn't purchased yet.  We thought we could a lot done on Tuesday, but, after about 87 trips to Lowes, we still hadn't accomplished much other than buying a lot of supplies, including paint for the living room, which we later decided we didn't like anymore because of how it looked with all the dark trim.  Basically, we got nothing done and now I had to go back to work today

Oh well, there will be many more days. 

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Congrats to you valley-man but I have to admit I about fell out LMAO at the thought of you in the  bathroom signing docs. I'm glad you kept the pen as I think that is proper bathroom pen handling etiquette. LOL

[Anonymous]

Valleyman....you almost made me spit out my coffee!!  Very funny...but what a memory that will be years down the line. Cheers to you, your home and your new pen!

[Anonymous]

what were they picky about with your fiance gifting the funds valleyman? how should the cashier's check look? i perhaps should probably just ask my Loan officer about this but oh well. haha

i'm signing my contract today so hopefully if all goes well i'll close by the end of April!

oh and yesterday my 2nd neice was born. what an exciting week so far!!!

[valley_man0505]

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@Anonymous wrote:

what were they picky about with your fiance gifting the funds valleyman? how should the cashier's check look? i perhaps should probably just ask my Loan officer about this but oh well. haha

i'm signing my contract today so hopefully if all goes well i'll close by the end of April!

oh and yesterday my 2nd neice was born. what an exciting week so far!!!

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Here's the long version (sorry).  Her and I have a joint bank account.  The money that was funding the downpayment came from her tax refund as well a miscellaneous lump sum deposit from an annuity payment she receives yearly.  Even though it is a joint account, the money is still considered "hers" in terms of the downpayment because of the sources of this money.  Therefore, we had to follow the FHA rules for Gift Funds.  She signed the necessary Gift Fund letter and we provided bank statements showing where the money came from.  Well, after almost all the paperwork was signed, someone from the Title company stepped in and said the lender needs "proof of gift funds".  At this point, we were all confused since this was all fully documented and the lender had given the clear to close late last week.  Well, it turns out that drawing a Cashier's Check from the account payable to the Title company was not adequate for the lender.  They needed to see a check from my fiance to me (the actual "gift" ) and then that check was to get transferred from me to the Title company.  Utlimately, we had to get a check payable to both myself AND the Title Company and it had to specifically state in the comment section of the check that this was from my fiance for gift funds.  Then, both myself AND the Title company had to simultaneously endorse the check.  The first time we actually managed to get the check made out properly and brought it back, the amount was wrong.  I had originally brought $5000 since the closing cost were going to be a little below $5000 including the downpayment (the seller paid $1700 of the closing costs as well).  Well, it turned out the check "from" my fiance to me had to be for $6000 since, early in the initial application process, we stated that she would be providing me with $6000 of gift funds.  Apparently, even though I didn't need that much, the check still needed to be made out for that much and then the Title company would then issue me a check for the difference.

All in all, it got really confusing.  You should have seen the bank teller's face when we told him we needed a check from our JOINT account from her to me.  Then, you should have seen his face when we came back again and again to keep doing different variations of the same thing.

Message Edited by valley_man0505 on 04-01-2009 08:46 AM

[Anonymous]

Wow. What an ordeal.  Atleast you are now closed and your biggest problems are paint colors. Hehe.

[valley_man0505]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Wow. What an ordeal.  Atleast you are now closed and your biggest problems are paint colors. Hehe.

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...and some electrical stuff.  I am already annoyed at not having any lights in the bedrooms or the living room.  Also, it turns out none of the outside lights work.  There is a light by the front door, one by the side door, and 2 on the back deck and NONE of them work.  Tried new light bulbs, checked the circuit breaker, looked to see if there were any GFI switches tripped anywhere....but found nothing.  I had the realtor ask the seller if there is some sort of trick to getting them turned on--guess what their response was: "Really?  We don't know anything about that.  They worked the last time we tried them."  Yeah, right!