topic Re: Woohoo! in Mortgage Loans

Woohoo!

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 22:25:22 GMT

So we started building in July and our home is just about finished. Closing it set up for 10/29 at 11:00 a.m. I realize there is still some time between now and then as far as reading stories of closings that changed at the last minute. But for the meantime, I have been cheesing pretty hard. On Monday, we locked in our rate at 5% with Bank of America. Yes indeed, that was a great birthday present - hahahaha. When we put together the contract, rates were at the 5.5% range so I am a happy camper.

Shelly

Re: Woohoo!

ShowCredit — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 23:24:03 GMT

CONGRATULATIONS and good luck on your closing. Great rate.

Re: Woohoo!

ArmyStrong — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 02:18:11 GMT

Congrats and good luck!!

Re: Woohoo!

donkort — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:11:44 GMT

I'm SINCERELY glad for you!

Don't do anything stupid, like I've done! No big purchases, no hard pulls!

Re: Woohoo!

Anonymous — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 19:07:45 GMT

Hi Sinceregal. Congrats on your new home!! My DH and I are also in the process of building and I am curious about your closing. Has all of your info been sent back to the UW? How long did all of that take? At what point did they set up your closing? Our loan is FHA so I know we have to have some final inspections, soil samples etc. Our rate right now is 5.5 and I too am hoping to close with a little lower rate. We are thinking we will be finished with our building about the first week of Novemeber and I can't wait!!!! Just curious about the unknown. Thanks and congrats again!!

Re: Woohoo!

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:30:52 GMT

Thanks so much on the congrats everyone!

Before we went to the bank to get our preapproval, we shut down applying for any credit....That is definitely great advice donkort....Our LO told us the same thing....We've started looking at a living room set and washer/dryer...But we are not purchasing ANYTHING until we get our keys No vacation...No nothing!!! If it wasn't already paid for, then we didn't do it, LOL....

Love2golf - I had to go look back at our notes but the following was our timeline. We have a FHA as well:

6/25/09: Under contract

7/10/09: Picked out selections at Design Center

7/21/09: Loan app started. Full automated preapproval received from builder's preferred lender (Bank of America). Given "to do list" for preliminary application. We already had our documentation together and so the application documents were all finished on the same day.

Week of 7/26/09: Enjoyed a cruise with the inlaws for their 55th birthday. Hence why the lender wanted to make sure he got our signatures before we left for vacation, lol....

Early to mid August: This seemed to take forever. I am finishing up graduate school and so my undergrad loans are in deferment. Well of course the underwriter wanted to see what my payments would be since the loans will go back into repayment next July. No biggie for us, we were expecting for our loans to be included in our DTI. However, the whole doing 3-way phonecalls between (in particular) Sallie Mae Good grief it was ridiculous!!!!

8/20/09: I guess between late July and mid-August, my file was finally released to the UW. Now when I talked with the lady who was gathering my stuff to submit to the UW, she confirmed that the UW knew the only thing holding up my file was getting the update for my student loans. To me, it seemed like it was taking forever and I wanted to be sure that it was not going to be seen as a negative. At any rate, the UW had my file and asked for additional information.

8/21/09: Submitted LOE for address discrepancy, fraud alert, and different name (oh the life of a married woman, lol)

Late August to mid September: Here we go again...No news to me meant good news...Obviously the UW was satisfied with my letter.

9/18/09: Builder's rep informs that they are shooting for 1st week in November for closing. Closing date will be firmed up at the end of the month.

9/19/09: Screech = my reply. Since I will be away on business (and I've told them that for some time), I said - we either have to close the last week in October or you have to wait til I get back in town mid-November because I wanted to be present at closing (versus signing over power of attorney to the dear hubby).

9/30/09: Builder and lender says they can close us on 10/29/09. Final walkthrough is set up for 10/26/09 in case there are punch list items to get done before closing. Our home will also be certified green, so we have another inspection that should happen around the same time as well in order for the final evaluation/points to be distributed....

10/5/09: Locked in our rate at 5%...No buydown or discount.....

Overall, I could not have imagined how great this homebuilding process would be....I'm sure things may have went a bit easier since we decided to use the builder's preferred lender....Our LO has been amazing!!!! For us, we were also able to take advantage of receiving closing costs and I'm sure from the builder's standpoint, he had piece of mind that he'd know quicker in terms of the loan status....It's been a hoot to drive by and see the progress....The exterior went quickly and as expected, the interior goes slower since there's only so many trades you can have in a space at one time...Enjoy!!!!

Message Edited by sinceregal09 on 10-11-2009 05:18 PM

Message Edited by sinceregal09 on 10-11-2009 05:30 PM

Re: Woohoo!

kai_1103 — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 20:46:01 GMT

May I ask what your credit scores are? Don't mean to be intrusive. I'm curious what earns you such a great rate!

Congradulations!!!!!

Re: Woohoo!

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 03:40:24 GMT

For FHA, rates are not totally dependent on your scores....

However, with an active fraud investigation going on at the time we submitted our application...Our "lowest mid-score" was in the 670s....

Not sure if you usually apply when you have an investigation open...But in our case, the LO felt comfortable starting the official application process because he did say that the rest of our file did not have any problems...DTI, downpayment, etc. So although we passed automated writing, even if the UW had a question about the fraud (which I did have to explain as a letter of explanation); it was something that we knew could easily be taken care of, and we went for it!

Re: Woohoo!

kai_1103 — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:05:17 GMT

Thanks for sharing! I just want to get the best rate I can- of course! So any information helps!

Thanks and congradulations!

Re: Woohoo!

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:09:51 GMT

Okay I figured I would share this so folks could get a good chuckle like I did just now....

Alrighty, so included in the papers of our contract was contact info on switching the utilities over in the home...Per the paperwork, at least 3 days before closing, we are to call the companies to get the utilities in our name and use our closing date as the start of service....

So I decide in kind to give our loan officer at the bank a call this morning....Told him I wanted to give him a heads up that since we'd be moving in a new county, it's pretty standard that your credit report is pulled to start service....Hence I called cause I was like - just want to let you know what we're doing in case another credit report is pulled...

Anyhow, the LO says thanks for the heads up but that another report wouldn't be run....

You know by time I got home this evening, there was an alert from Experian waiting on me....Landsafe pulled our report again TODAY, hahahahahaa....Then I hopped on here, checked both our accounts and yes indeed...Another credit report was pulled....

I just had to chuckle since earlier today the LO was adament that another report wouldn't be run....Guess the UW showed him

Although I guess it's a good thing I actually didn't get around to calling the new companies since I ended up spending most of my time setting up disconnection for my existing services today....Therefore, I should NOT have to write a LOX for new inquiries since they're not there!

Re: Woohoo!

Anonymous — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 02:16:33 GMT

I am pretty sure utilities do soft pulls generally.

Re: Woohoo!

Anonymous — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 18:24:43 GMT

I guess it depends on where you live and what services you are setting up....

But in general, I was erring on the side of caution since our LO did tell us months ago to not buy anything, lol....

At any rate, I know my current electric company did do a hard inquiry when we moved to NC three years ago....However other bills like the city water and trash was a soft pull as you said....

Re: Woohoo!

Anonymous — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:53:43 GMT

sinceregal09

Please give us a status update on both your walk-thru today and your closing on Thursday. I'm in a very similiar situation with purchasing a new construction home. However, mine was already completed and I too used the Builders Preferred Lender who is also Bank of America. I'm currently in UW and as of today I have yet to received any additional conditions from them. My file was sent to them last week Monday 10/19 and my first Walk Thru is this Friday and my Closing is scheduled for 11/6. I'm very exicted and hope everything goes as planned.

I too had an AWESOME LO. She made sure that after my file cleared the Auto UW that any additional documentation she felt I needed she asked of me and I provided within a week. The UW sent me an email with a copy of my apprasial and said she expects to get final signatures by no later than today. So I'm assuming she had no further issues with me???? Hope that is the case!

Good luck to you today & Thursday!

Re: Woohoo!

Anonymous — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:36:05 GMT

CONGRATS!!! I close a week after you on my new construction! I started the process an entire month before you though. LOL ...and things weren't as smooth....."communication" was on hiatus and made things quite difficult...hahaha To add, it took almost 3 months for the county to approve the permits!! Grrrrrr.....

Re: Woohoo!

Anonymous — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:36:35 GMT

NewHope - Good Evening! Congrats on your journey as well.

We did have our walkthrough on Monday and there were a few items which had to be fixed. I'm assuming that this could be the process when you're with BOA as a preferred lender...But I would venture to say that if you haven't heard anything, then there aren't any "show stopper" issues.

Anyhoo, getting back to my story

Monday morning we had our walkthrough...In the afternoon, we got a call from our LO stating the UW had one FINAL explanation letter she wanted from us. The first item dealt with my husband's current employer not showing up on his reports. My LO said he was surprised that even came back considering it is not the job of the credit bureau to give employment history, but he was like, with things being what they are in the mortgage market - you just gotta roll with it. The second item was that I had previously sent in a recent 30 day statement showing our downpayment funds were moved in the account. Well of course there were two small deposits into the account since it's the checking account we pay household bills from. But since they were deposits over $100 and not attached to a payroll ($220 and $360), we had to explain it.

Tuesday we did not hear anything besides knowing that our Superintendent was working on fixing the outstanding items.

Wednesday (today), I knew I'd be tied up in meetings and so I called my LO around 11:30 a.m. to inquire about the exact dollar amount I'd need to bring to closing since I know we had to get a bank check for it. So he calls me back and says we should hear from the Attorney handling everything this afternoon OR tomorrow morning...Then at about 5:00 p.m. my LO called me back with a copy of the HUD paperwork.

And now that brings us to this evening.....We are both cheesing pretty hard

The game plan for tomorrow morning is to meet at the house at 9:00 a.m...Make sure everything is completed....Stop at the bank for the check....And then back to town to the Attorney's office for closing at 11:00 a.m...

So anyhow, I think all is well with you....Like I said, even if something does come up, it probably will not be in the "show stopper" category as long as you have not done anything to negatively affect your filing status...I have literally not done anything....You saw I prematurely stressed when it was time for us to convert all the utilities into our names, lol....

Shelly

Message Edited by sinceregal09 on 10-28-2009 05:36 PM

Re: Woohoo!

Anonymous — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:41:23 GMT

Donesha....I remember reading some of your posts earlier on before we finished our contract negotiations....

So sorry to hear that things weren't as smooth...But you don't have much longer to go....Hang in there :-)

Re: Woohoo!

Anonymous — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:42:12 GMT

O yeah....I'll also be sure to report back on how things went at closing tomorrow.....Until then

Some Pics....

Anonymous — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:35:52 GMT

Figured I'd include some pics....

So from this -

We went to this -

I know there's a few of you getting ready for final walkthroughs with the builder....And what I can say is to pay the extra couple hundred dollars for an inspector EVEN with a new home....Since our walk was on a Monday, we lined up all of our inspectors the week before so that we'd get the reports Friday...

Now for us, we had two third party inspections.....The first was with us all throughout because while the builder does Energy Star homes, we decided to make the investment in putting additional green into the home....So basically, whatever we could do to our building envelope, we did....And therefore, our project verifier had to come in through various stages of construction to confirm items were installed correctly and then the last test we had set up was the blower door / thermal imaging....Since we started with the blower door and found that the home's leakage (even with the garage house door open when the test is usually performed with all windows and doors closed so that just shows they did an excellent job insulating the garage) was only at 3%, we didn't need to take it a step further with the imaging cameras (although if our leakage was more, he could have since he bought all the equipment onsite)...

Just for FYI...Typically, a builder spec home (depends on age too) could have as much as 20% leakage...If your home is Energy Star, then air leakage cannot exceed 6%...To be certified Green, it cannot exceed 5%.....There is no such thing as a 100% airtight home so you will never get down to 0%....Given the specs of our home - 2 stories approximately 2700 sf total....3% is fantastic....I am definitely a happy camper.....

Anyhow, we had the regular inspector come out as well and so it was very easy during our walkthrough to share what was in the report...Of course, all of us (builder, us, and our realtor) still walked through the inside and outside of the house....But case in point, the bathroom sinks had a leak the other week...Yet on Monday when we tried to simulate it, no leaks were found....However, since I had the report and I remembered exactly what part of the pipe was leaking, we made the builder put that on his list of items to complete before closing today.....

Now although the home inspector (our cost was $250) did not have any "show stopper" findings, I know that was the best couple hundred dollars spent throughout this process....I may love rollercoasters, but even though it's our house, there was NO WAY I was climbing to see the roof up close, hahahahaha

Just sharing

Message Edited by sinceregal09 on 10-29-2009 03:23 AM

Message Edited by sinceregal09 on 10-29-2009 03:35 AM

Re: Some Pics....

kai_1103 — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:59:40 GMT

I love it! Congradulations!!! You did such a great job with everything. I really hope you love this house for years and years!!

Re: Some Pics....

ShowCredit — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:20:29 GMT

Congratulations, Beautiful House.