Stress of buying a house

[UconnTim97]

My fiance and I are in the process of buying a house. Preapproved mortgage, seller agreed to our bid, awaiting a inspection next week. Is this not the most stressful few weeks, or what?

I have been driven nuts the past few days.

[Tishabet]

Yeah dude, went through this for the first time a little over a year ago (I'm 26, Finacee is 26, first mortgage ever) and it was intensely stressful... but we also had problems with the closing.
It's worth it in the end, though!

[legion]

I was getting crapped on at work so hard when I was buying my house (first time) that the process hardly generated any stress for me. That, and my worthless realtor didn't do 1/3 of the things she was supposed to do, so I thought the whole process was going exceedingly smoothly.

[notfarnow]

I was very lucky when we bought our house.

-I knew the selling agent, and was comfortable using him as a buying agent. That saved us $$ and made the process easier
-My father in law is a lawyer, and hand-held us through the process. Helped avoid potential obstacles and shady dealings
-We both loved the house enough to make the hassle and heartache worthwhile.

So buying the house was easy. Now, renovations... that's another story!

UconnTim97, is it a new house?

[Tishabet]

Originally posted by notfarnow

-We both loved the house enough to make the hassle and heartache worthwhile.

That was key for us as well....after seeing dozens of places, we walked out of the one we currently own after seeing if it for the first time, and said, "That's the one for us."
The 911SC in earnest money also kept me focused during the P&S/closing process

[on-ramp]

pay close attention to the inspection because it's a bargaining chip.

any problem must be addressed & renogotiated in the price. of course the realtors will try to keep the price as high as possible because they earn a % commission from the sale.

1 day before we were supposed to sign the P&S agreement, the radon levels in the basement came up a bit too high. mitigation costs about 1 grand.

we called the realtor and said, don't call back unless you drop 1 grand from the final price on the house.

be strict, even if it's your 1st house. scumbag realtors are no better than used car salesment and they'll try and push you around.good luck

[TerryH]

We bought two years after marriage. It was the start of the 80's and prime rate was about 20%. Taxes ate our savings each year, so we had to get creative to manage the down payment. Barrowed 10% from my folks and the sellers carried 10%. We assumed their 1st mortgage and took out a new second to cover the balance. Yes, they gave us 4 house payments each month and those didn't include taxes and insurance. Somehow we managed to survive and things got easier as our income grew. Hang in there!

[notfarnow]

Originally posted by Tshabet
That was key for us as well....after seeing dozens of places, we walked out of the one we currently own after seeing if it for the first time, and said, "That's the one for us."

We bought the first house we ever looked at! We weren't planning on buying for another year, but we were watching the market, driving around neighborhoods we liked etc. The price on our house kept dropping... got to a point where we had to make a move even if we weren't quite where we wanted to be financially. We LOVE our house.

Tshabet, hat kind of problems did you have on closing?

UconnTim97, when is the inspection? It is great if you can be there when they do it. I had to negotiate that with our house inspector, he was hesitant but it made me feel much more comfortable.

When my brother's house was "inspected", they didn't check out the basement because "everything looks pretty good". Missed knob & tube wiring, botched plumbing and a furnace that hadn't been serviced in 5 years.

[legion]

Originally posted by on-ramp
be strict, even if it's your 1st house. scumbag realtors are no better than used car salesment and they'll try and push you around.good luck

on-ramp is spot-on. I wish I'd been more aggressive with my scumbag realtor.

[VINMAN]

my first house i bought 14 yrs ago was a breeze no problems at all. My current house was a nitemare. The closing date was supposed to be the same day as the sale of my old house. Then the seller decides a week before that she cant get out that soon. so it gets moved 3 weeks later. So now I have to put all my stuff in storage. 8 rooms of stuff and content of 2 car garage and large shed. Good thing my wife (fiance at the time) still had a month left on her place so I had a place to stay.

So now at 7:30 pm the night before the closing date of the sale of my house, I get a phone call from my lawyer saying that there is a title issue and we might not close tommorow. The next morning I get another call from him saying that my buyer is threatening to cancell the deal if we dont close today. The purchase of my new house was contigent on the sale of my old one. Needless to say my blood is boiling and I'm ready to murder someone. We end up pushing the date of the sale to 2 days before the purchase of the new house. After rushing like a maniac to get all my stuff in storage. I ended up sleeping in an empty house on a mattress on the floor.

My closing date was December 23. at 3:00pm I had to move in on Christmas eve

[motion]

The process is kept complicated and convulated by the realtors and title companies intentionally. It really shouldn't be such a big deal. A quick title search, an inspection and financing. Shouldn't take more than a week. But instead, they play on your emotions to get money from you.

[VINMAN]

Originally posted by motion
The process is kept complicated and convulated by the realtors and title companies intentionally. It really shouldn't be such a big deal. A quick title search, an inspection and financing. Shouldn't take more than a week. But instead, they play on your emotions to get money from you.

What really burned my as$ was the fact that the title company waited until the night before the closing to find a problem. I think all that crap should have been a done deal, days if not at least a week beforehand. I chewed my lawyer a new one for that. He should have been on top of things.

[Jims5543]

Originally posted by notfarnow


So buying the house was easy. Now, renovations... that's another story!

Yup! And so begin all the projects.... the never ending list of projects.


My bro in law bought a brand new house and I teased him that his life was about to be over. Now he gets to work on projects on the house. He told me I was crazy, 8 months later, he now understands.

[Tishabet]

Originally posted by notfarnow

Tshabet, hat kind of problems did you have on closing?

Well, first off, we bought a condo in a mixed residential/business building. In addition, the entire building has 4 condos total (one for each floor) so both of these factors complicated financing. So securing financing was an adventure on its own.
Then we entered the VINMAN cycle...
We were supposed to close at 11AM on a friday. At 9AM the lawyers call us to say they still haven't received the closing package...a call to our mortgage company and a lot of yelling reveals that the property was NEVER APPRAISED. WTF?!? So then when the appraisal was finally performed, the mortgage guy calls and says that they cannot finance the property because the appraisal has revealed that the building is mixed residential and business. We point out that we had specifically disclosed this to him, and that we had emails etc. from him discussing this topic. Long story short, we are looking for a new mortgage company...4 days after we were suppposed to close.
At this point, the P&S says that the seller can simply walk away with my 911SC in earnest money.
Three mortgage companies and 1 month later we finally close. Total nightmare.
Worth it in hindsight, but sure sucked at the time.

[TerryBPP]

Check out my house thread:

House purchasing vent!

I ended up buying a nicer, more expensive house which I love. And the closing went rather smoothy except the mortgage company forgot to order a survey. Luckily I have a few connections in that area so I got it done that day.

[turbo6bar]

My rule for buying and selling homes:
Plan for the worst. Expect the worst.

When you have low expectations, it is difficult to be disappointed. I pay cash for foreclosures to avoid the financing headache, and even then, title companies are still able to find ways to fock up the process.

[amity914]

We just bought a 6 bedroom house on 2 acres for $130,000. I was really stressed out during the inspection process because I thought there would be something really wrong with it for the price. But all came through Okay.

[vash]

bring a bottle of pepto to the paper signing. for me, that was the stress "coming to a head". your lucky pen may help too.. you will be signing your name and initialling here and there for seemingly an eternity. that and seeing my lifes savings disappear was overwhelming.

i did it all on my own with my girlfriend sitting next to me. she is not my fiance yet. she said my color was white. next house, she is doing all the work.

[Drago]

Originally posted by motion
The process is kept complicated and convulated by the realtors and title companies intentionally. It really shouldn't be such a big deal. A quick title search, an inspection and financing. Shouldn't take more than a week. But instead, they play on your emotions to get money from you.

Yup. Don't let them get your panties in a twist and it's a much smoother process. Threatening firing them or walking away can have tremendous results.

[GDSOB]

Originally posted by UconnTim97
My fiance and I are in the process of buying a house. Preapproved mortgage, seller agreed to our bid, awaiting a inspection next week. Is this not the most stressful few weeks, or what?

I have been driven nuts the past few days.

Don't let the stress get to you. Remember YOU are in charge, not the realtors, lenders, title co, or seller. You made an emotional decision to buy the house, but don't let emotion override logic.

Make sure EVERYTHING is in writing. Any changes to the terms of the contract need to be in writing. Your inspector will provide you with a report and a recommended repair list. Be reasonable, you may be asking the seller to repair some of the high dollar items that weren't visible during the showings. You are still negotiating at this point. What the sellers will fix really depends on the current market. Make sure you get receipts for the work and a walk-thru before closing.

There are dates for all the important milestones. Make sure your realtor & lender are on top of these dates in order to close on time. Ask for a copy of the appraisal as soon as it is complete (you paid for it).

If you don't understand something just say no, I'm not comfortable with that & ask for clarification. Don't commit to anything you don't understand. You'll probably find that most involved will be willing to help & explain. Keep a level head, sometimes the emotion affects buyers/sellers and they get a bit nuts.

Good luck with your new home.