Buying your first home in US. Headache or super fun time?

[silvana.toma 15]

Hmmm.....

The company we used is liberty mutual, and so far they were the one to give us the best rate. It's 660 for the entire year. But don't they take into account how big the house is...etc etc...? We are insured for 220k in case the house burns down to the ground. Geico wanted 900, and we are having geico car insurance(the best ever!!)and still their home insurance was way higher than liberty.

[silvana.toma 15]

Ok...we are checking all state now.I'll let you know.

TX!

[Kimbear 53]

Hmmm.....

The company we used is liberty mutual, and so far they were the one to give us the best rate. It's 660 for the entire year. But don't they take into account how big the house is...etc etc...? We are insured for 220k in case the house burns down to the ground. Geico wanted 900, and we are having geico car insurance(the best ever!!)and still their home insurance was way higher than liberty.

Geico told us they do not insure properties themselves. we figured since we already have car with them house would be a bundle deal, but they gave us rates for travellers and it is in fact travellers that is responsible not geico. they sort of work together i was told.

[silvana.toma 15]

Ok...so all state said $1200, so i guess we will stick with liberty only 660.

Geico told us they do not insure properties themselves. we figured since we already have car with them house would be a bundle deal, but they gave us rates for travellers and it is in fact travellers that is responsible not geico. they sort of work together i was told.

Yes you are right, it was something along those lines what we were told by geico.

[Bsze 50]

Sometimes, if you have multiple insurance policies with the same company they will give you a reduced rate. We have State Farm for our life, auto and home insurance. If we had just the home insurance with them, it would have been $900 a month. But because we have multiple policies with them, it's now $500.

Hope this helps!

If not...

[silvana.toma 15]

Sometimes, if you have multiple insurance policies with the same company they will give you a reduced rate. We have State Farm for our life, auto and home insurance. If we had just the home insurance with them, it would have been $900 a month. But because we have multiple policies with them, it's now $500.

Hope this helps!

If not...

I think it also depends on many factors when they calculate your insurance. For example some friends here at vj told me that all state charged them 500, and when we called they wanted 1200. I know one of the problems that we only have a fire station like 7 miles from where we live and aparently that's a negative point for us. Also the house is a 3,300 sq foot home, so i'm sure that's not helping either. But hey 660..it's not that bad, it could be a worse.

thanks for your input!

[silvana.toma 15]

We are suppoosed to close on our house next week, and i was friking out because i thought they will charge us a per diem fee in case for some reason we can not close.

They just called us and told us to relax, the bank extended us with one week, and if it goes beyond that than not to worry about the 100/day charge

Aparently they told us short sales are not how they used to be(at least here in va)the banks are more flexible and they are willing to work with you more...

We will be closing soon, and our time frame will be around 3, 4 months for a short sale, not bad at all.

I will never be able to thank you guys enough for all the help you have given me, i have to say without you i would have been lost, not just with the house, but with the green card journey as well.

You saved me money, gave me great advice, you were there for me, TAHNK YOU!

[juliava 80]

We are suppoosed to close on our house next week, and i was friking out because i thought they will charge us a per diem fee in case for some reason we can not close.

They just called us and told us to relax, the bank extended us with one week, and if it goes beyond that than not to worry about the 100/day charge

Aparently they told us short sales are not how they used to be(at least here in va)the banks are more flexible and they are willing to work with you more...

We will be closing soon, and our time frame will be around 3, 4 months for a short sale, not bad at all.

I will never be able to thank you guys enough for all the help you have given me, i have to say without you i would have been lost, not just with the house, but with the green card journey as well.

You saved me money, gave me great advice, you were there for me, TAHNK YOU!

Yay, Silvana, almost there!Congrats!

[silvana.toma 15]

Yay, Silvana, almost there!Congrats!

Tx iuliana, tx for all the support and help!I'll send you some pics once we get the house... I wish we would have the nice garden, but we can plant and make it our own in time, right?

[silvana.toma 15]

We were suposed to close on our short sale house next week, but we got a phone call from our bank saying that the gov(it's a gov loan VHDA) will take at least another 30 days for aproval.

We started this loan process on feb 18, got a radified contract on april 1st, so if they will take another 30 days that means the loan process took 4 months....isn't that a long time? Just the underwritter took 5 weeks.

Also our bank wants us to put carpet downstairs(around 3k-huge rooms)and paint, before we close, but i told them i am not putting anything until i know i am aproved from everybody.

I can not believe that we are not closing because of us, the short sale part was perfect so far, they were on their game,it's us who can not deliver as we established.

Maybe i'm ignorant in this matter, but our loan officer said he never done this type of loan, so he didn;t know it will take 30 days or more, and i am wondering ...ok so he never had to deal with this type of loan, but he knew we are doing this loan, should't he get a bit informed on how long does this take, especially that we had a time frame we had to be in? we had our closing date since april 1st.

[Fandango 1,439]

I haven't checked this thread in a while, and there's so much to say, but I'll just say I agree with Rebecca and Lord Infamous regarding the mortgage.

The sneakiest part that even now is unbelievable to me it's the VHDA loan. We were told with this loan we have no mortgage insurance this way we are saving around $100 a month, so our mortgage will be less every month. we went on the official website to double check and it says NO MI(mortgage insurance). Then we get the bomb, the MI that we supose to pay every month is actually a big lump sum added to ths cost of the house. So your house was 175, so now it's 181 because they aded the MI as a lump sum instead of doing it every month. OMG..i told my husband let's get this over with before i change my mind and stay in the nice, stress free rental apartment.

what kind of bull s## is that? So you are telling me no MI when in fact there is a MI. Banks love to play with you, especially the friking fine lines, they always get you, somehow they always do. Sometimes i feel like here you need a lawyer for just about anything you do...

Sylvana, no offense, but what is so 'sneaky' about that? You are getting a government backed loan, with 3% down, paying no PMI. Do you know how much money you're saving? There is a cost associated with the USDA loan - 2 or 3% added to the loan. So it's even financed over 30 years! You don't have to buy down your loan, you don't have to pay upfront fees, you're financing an addtl $6k for the ease of not paying PMI. do you know what that works out to over a 30 year payment? If you were at a 5% interest rate, it'd be fair to assume (and I'm going to overestimate here), that for $5k in loan, you'd be paying $30-35 extra a month.

Mortgage insurance would cost you HUNDREDS a month. In the end, it would cost you tens of thousands.

You shouldn't consider that sneaky, you should consider that a gift, and be very thankful for it.

I think your realtor and/or your mtg broker are doing you a disservice by not educating you clearly on each step of the process.

____________

As to not getting a survey, no offense Krikit, but that is penny wise and dollar foolish advice. You're committing to almost $200k, and the smartest thing would be to shell out the poxy $250 to make sure there are no encroachments since the last survey. Stranger things have happened, and if there was something really wrong, losing $250 is a lot better than losing $200k.

Edited May 5, 2011 by Anita Cocktail

[Fandango 1,439]

I can't really speak for Virginia, but I think you probably have an appraisal office for your county government. The county will appraise all houses for what they think they are "worth" as far as taxing. That is far different than a real estate appraisal which will take into consideration size, location and maybe if it's painted really pretty and has new appliances. The county appraisal may be more about what is the land worth, how big is the house, how many bathrooms. They won't be considering paint, new roof, new carpet, stainless steel and granite. So a real estate appraisal could come out higher than a tax appraisal.

Counties can change their appraisals every year if they like. Just got my proposed appraisal in the mail. They have increased my house 17%. There is some kind of law saying they can't increase you more than 10% in a year, so I will only be taxed next year on a 10% increase and the rest of it goes into affect for sure the following year. So in one year my taxes are up $800 (at the 10% cap) and will be up more next year. They will continue to go up (or down) based on tax appraisal, not what you paid for the house.

The county's starting value comes from the selling price, minus any exemptions the homeowner has.

[silvana.toma 15]

I think i got confused with the word private. We were told NO MI, so i assumed there is no mi at all. I am a first time homebuyer, i didn;t know the difference between private and mi. first time we talked to a realtor we were told the usda loans are great they save us $100 monthly( for 6 years )as we don't have to pay MI...now we will be paying $30 over 3o years in MI.

I guess my biggest frustration is the fact that buying a home requires so much to take in, there is a lot of new stuff that you need to get familiar with in a short time, and then you have the experience with a really bad realtor, then with a so and so realtor who didn't really spent much time educating you...and that's just a perfect receipe for disaster. 80%of what i know is from the internet, and sometimes that can also be misleading.

When i asked our loan officer about the MI he said he doesn't really know much about this type of loan to answer most of my questions...

[Fandango 1,439]

I think i got confused with the word private. We were told NO MI, so i assumed there is no mi at all. I am a first time homebuyer, i didn;t know the difference between private and mi. first time we talked to a realtor we were told the usda loans are great they save us $100 monthly( for 6 years )as we don't have to pay MI...now we will be paying $30 over 3o years in MI.

I guess my biggest frustration is the fact that buying a home requires so much to take in, there is a lot of new stuff that you need to get familiar with in a short time, and then you have the experience with a really bad realtor, then with a so and so realtor who didn't really spent much time educating you...and that's just a perfect receipe for disaster. 80%of what i know is from the internet, and sometimes that can also be misleading.

When i asked our loan officer about the MI he said he doesn't really know much about this type of loan to answer most of my questions...

While it can be construed as a mortgage insurance fee, it's really a Federally mandated gov't guarantee fee.

I understand you've been given lots of bad advice irl, but at the end of the day, you're not paying PMI which would be hundreds a month. Other than this loan, you would be paying it. You'd pay it with VA/FHA. You'd pay it with conventional. This is the absolute cheapest option. It's not like you had your choice of 0 to little down, no PMI loans, you picked this one out of the bunch, then found out about the fee. You weren't duped. No one pulled a 'switcharoo' on you.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to come across as harsh here, that is not my intention...but calling the loan 'shady' for collecting 5-6k on an almost $200k finance job, and allowing you to finance it over x years, while putting 0 or 3% down is really unfair. This is a gift, really.

You know why there's PMI to begin with? When you don't put up enough of your own money, the lender feels you don't have enough 'skin in the game' so to speak, in order to feel like you are absolutely committed to the house. That can only be done by putting down a minimum of around 20%. Since you don't have the 20% to put down, it's not really kind to call the loan 'shady' when they're giving you an option to get into your own home, without charging you thousands per year to do so.

I cannot believe your lender is giving you such little information. I actually cannot believe your lender doesn't know this loan like the back of his hand. USDA gives training seminars on this loan, I've actually gone to it and I'm not a lender of any sort. Perhaps before you sign all the paperwork, you should ask to speak to someone in his company who CAN explain what you're signing. 'I don't know' really isn't an acceptable answer at this stage of the game.

Good luck.

Edited May 5, 2011 by Anita Cocktail

[silvana.toma 15]

Sorry but when you get sc##ewd by "profesionals" no wonder you don't know jack. No wonder you get confused. It's a very frustrating process, and with our experience i don't believe or trust anything i hear.

We showed them our bank account, we showed them that if we wanted to we could put 50%, but i guess the mortgage insurance doesn't care how much money you have..it's probably standard to charge you for it anyway.

We started the loan process in feb 18, the underwritter took 5 weeks, and the week before we were suposed to close we are told usda takes at least a month to aprove. I'm just saying ...i know our mrtg people haven't worked with usda, but when you know you have a time line should't they have checked to see how long does it usually take these days to get aproved by the gov?

We already asked for an extension-and we got it, now we will have to ask for another extension for at least another 30 days?? Our lease expires this month, and hopefully they will let us stay another month.

If we loose this house, maybe it's a sign that we should stay here until we save the rest of the money and then buy the home cash...