Getting a Mortgage Sucks

[KLC77]

Thanks for all the great info ladies. So, I found out that the 4k fee is because we are getting an FHA loan and FHA requires you pay a portion of the PMI up front and then your monthly PMI payments are smaller. We would really love to be able to put the 20% down to avoid the PMI altogether, but its just not possible.

 

We are supposed to close in two weeks. I feel like if I can't get it worked out by Monday we will never meet our deadline. I'm feeling a little more confident today though. A family member has offered to lend us some money. So, we just need to sit down and make sure we will be able to pay them back in a reasonable amount of time. Hopefully we have everything figured out tomorrow.

 

Keep your fingers crossed for us!

[julzcabo]

I hope it works out. No matter what, buying a home in general is very stressful. Unless you absolutely love and must have the house, maybe it's not worth going through with it? There will always be homes for sale and I don't think the market has bottomed out. I'm also not keen on borrowing money from family because it could end up hurting the relationship. However, you are almost done with the buying process so it might be easier to just bite the bullet. Best of luck!

[**~Jenn~**]

I just wanted to Bump this thread, Rather than start a new one

I am in the begining process of being a First time home buyer and I feel like an idiot! I don't understand half of the crap that I am reading.

We originally went through a broker to get Pre-Approved, and we did (yay) But I was wondering....Is it better to go through the lender directly or a broker?

I don't have alot of money saved, we are hoping to get the FHA first time Home buyer loan and then combine that with a PA grant (still in the process of reading up on all of this though) I know it's a long shot, but I don't have thousands in the bank saved up ready to put down on a house (unfortunately) We are going to try our best. I am hoping to have a house by the summer...If it doesn't work out, we may just rent for a while longer.

Either way, I need to move. I am currently renting from my cousin. It's good a thing money wise since we didn't need a security deposit & etc...But bad because it's like pulling teeth to get in touch with him to fix anything!!

 

Basically I just want to know some opinions on buying a house without a lot of money saved up. Is it possible? Am I just kidding myself?? Help!

[rodent]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhillyBride09 I just wanted to Bump this thread, Rather than start a new one I am in the begining process of being a First time home buyer and I feel like an idiot! I don't understand half of the crap that I am reading. We originally went through a broker to get Pre-Approved, and we did (yay) But I was wondering....Is it better to go through the lender directly or a broker? I don't have alot of money saved, we are hoping to get the FHA first time Home buyer loan and then combine that with a PA grant (still in the process of reading up on all of this though) I know it's a long shot, but I don't have thousands in the bank saved up ready to put down on a house (unfortunately) We are going to try our best. I am hoping to have a house by the summer...If it doesn't work out, we may just rent for a while longer. Either way, I need to move. I am currently renting from my cousin. It's good a thing money wise since we didn't need a security deposit & etc...But bad because it's like pulling teeth to get in touch with him to fix anything!! Basically I just want to know some opinions on buying a house without a lot of money saved up. Is it possible? Am I just kidding myself?? Help!

You can get an FHA loan without a lot to put down. I think it's 3.5%. But, you will have to pay PMI until you have 20% equity in the house. there were ways people got around it before, but things are stricter now because a lot of these loop holes helped us get intot eh mess we are currently in.

We got our first mortgage a few weeks ago. I heard things were about to really change to make it easier to compare rates. Those changes should have taken effect.

You can't just look at the interest rate. There are loan origination fees & points that change the rate.

We got a rate at 4.85% with no loan origination fee & no points.

The loan orinination fee & each additional point is 1% of the loan amount. So for our $180,000 loan it would be $1,800.

Each 1,800 we would have paid would have reduced out interest rate by 0.25%

We opted for the higher rate to save the money upfront for a few reasons
1. it would take about 7 years to recoup the 1,800 in lower monthly payments
2. after putting 20% down, we really needed to save that money to keep our emergency funds alive
3. we closed in december & wouldn't have been able to take advantage of the tax breaks from paying that money anyway. We don't itemize right now because as renters, the standard deduction was better.

There are calculators to see how long it takes to recoup money paid in points, but they are often oversimplified. You have to also take in account the time value of money knowing that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar in 10 years.

i hope this made sense. i was pretty confused when we started. i spent a lot of time talking to someone from goodmortage.com & i read motgages for dummies and house buying for dummies several times over.

i ended up going with a local broker my real estate recommended. i had a great experience. she answered all of my remainig questions & the day of actually getting the loan was great. it was a lot of fun. never expected that.

so my tips:
read the dummies books & dont expect to understand it all.
talk to some lenders & ask questions
reread the books. you'll see you get a lot more, but probably still have questions.


Mortgage Loans at goodmortgage.com - internet mortgage lenders - where loans click!
i found their website to be pretty helpful. the rates with & without loan origination fees & points are listed.

also, the rates are pretty much the same wherever you go. rates bounce around each day. You can lock in the rate before closing. We locked in our 4.875% rate nov 10th & closed dec 15th. If someone has a too good to be true rate, it probably is. You could end up with issues when you try to close. The rates won't deviate much from what you see on a website like goodmortgage's.

One thing that can vary a lot are the fees. mortgages for dummies has a breakdown of what the fees are for & a fare range. Some places may try to sneak in unneccessary fees. I had a few places send me a list of all their fees so I could make sure the place I went with was in line with what we should pay.

you also want to go with someone who can take care of you when you need them. My broker was always available & quick to get things done. I had to call her at 8am some days to email something so we could move forward with buying the house. She always got right on it. My real estate agent works with her a lot so they were able to get things done together fast.

I had a pretty wonderful first time home buying experience. I kept waiting for it to be difficult, but it was a great process from start to finish.

Hope this helps!

[**~Jenn~**]

Wow...Thanks Morgan!

I never thought of getting a Mortgages for Dummies book!

Thank you for all the info, I do understand things a little more. We are getting together with our broker in the next few weeks, so hopefully between talking to him and also reading the book & website you clued me into, I will feel more confortable.

Congrats on being a home owner!

[rodent]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhillyBride09 Wow...Thanks Morgan! I never thought of getting a Mortgages for Dummies book! Thank you for all the info, I do understand things a little more. We are getting together with our broker in the next few weeks, so hopefully between talking to him and also reading the book & website you clued me into, I will feel more confortable. Congrats on being a home owner!

no one knows what they are doing when they start. it's really not that hard, it's just a lot of new stuff to learn about.

there is also fixed vs adjustable to decide on. And then 15yr vs 30yr. We went with a 30 year fixed.

I love the dummies books. They are such a great way to learn what you need to know about any topic. You can buy a house without really understanding what you are doing, but the more you know the better decision you can make & the less likely you'll make a mistake.

Also, it was important to me to work with people willing to answer my questions. Some lenders I talked too acted like I couldn't possibly understand what they do & I should just take their word for it. I hate that attitude. A professional should be able to break things down where someone not in the business can understand.

One mistake i made was not keeping an eye on my cell phone minutes & after all these long phone calls about mortgages I ran out of minutes. Luckily just by $30 by the time I caught it.