rincewind

Okay, I've been here coming on four years now and whilst renting a home has it's perks, it can also be a pain in the butt when you want to remodel certain things.

I've just secured another yearly lease to give me time to get my head around the US method of buying a home and actually finding one.

For those that have purchased homes here, who did you use or who would you recommend? I'm planning on speaking with my bank to see what they will offer but I'm also going to be shopping around.

The TV spews ads for Lending Tree, DiTech and all those but who is the best??

Can you avoid out of pocket expenses here?

Andy_LongIsland

I think you got the right idea, when we get our place I'm gonna try all of the above. Best to shop around when you are borrwing such a large amount of money. Think the best will be the best rate you get - personally I'd get a fixed rate and then refinance if the interest rate dropped a heck of a lot.

Dunno if you get Newsday when you are but that gives you a good idea of rates with banks, how much to put down etc in the homebuyers section - found that quite interesting

fatbrit

Don't put in the loan app (i.e. let them pull your credit) until you're ready to go. DiTech is the sub-prime arm of GMAC, BTW -- former best avoided, the latter okay. The best lending site out there IMVHO is eloan.com. Run your apps through 1 or 2 internet sites, 1 or 2 banks and/or credit unions, and 1 or 2 independent brokers simultaneously around 30 days before you intend to buy so as to only ding your credit score the once.

As you've got a year to prepare, start putting your credit in order. You should have a perfect record with at least 4 lines (mix of revolving and installment), and your revolving lines should be < 20% of their maximum. If not, start heading in that direction pronto.

Minimizing out-of-pocket fees by rolling them into the loan will cost you in terms of the interest rate. The ideal is to put 20% of the purchase price down and pay all the closing costs (or persuade the seller to do this for you!). If this is not possible, aim as close as you can. Open a separate account for this now since at the app time you will need to document where the money you are putting down came from.

Time to start learning about the myriad of loans available, I think. I like this guy as a primer, though I don't agree with everything he says

michmel

When my relatives all moved to Georgia and they all used the same Realtor. She was very good and worked very diligently on their behalf.

If you need her details please email me.

<<Member's email address removed>>

fatbrit

[QUOTE=michmel]When my relatives all moved to Georgia and they all used the same Realtor. She was very good and worked very diligently on their behalf.

If you need her details please email me.

<<Member's email address removed>>


Always difficult to find a Realtor!

Englishmum

I highly recommend the book "Home Buying for Dummies" (those yellow and black books). You should find them in any large bookshop or here - and if you scroll down the page you can buy 'Mortgages for Dummies' at the same time at a discounted price:


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/047...e=UTF8&s=books


Tip: even if kids are not on the horizon, if you want to live in the suburbs, choose a property in a good school district. Your property will hold/increase in value and far easier to re-sell when you want to move on.

snowbunny

Is the 20% down to eliminate PMI or is there another reason?

anotherlimey

I'm just starting out too, and I can't stand realtors already - even ones that are "good" friends of the family.

House prices have boomed here, but recently I've seen lots of houses being reduced in price because the owner wants to get rid of them ASAP because they can't afford to keep up with their interest only variable rate mortgages.

fatbrit

Often, the more you put down, the lower the rate.

This is especially true for sub-prime loans -- where PMI is not charged, anyway. But it also holds for the "A-Papers" as well.

Lenders figure that if you ain't put anything in on the deal, you're more likely to walk if your circumstances change since you ain't got much to lose!

snowbunny

Yep. I think a lot of people are going to be hurting with the rises in interest rates, and I don't know that the economy justifies them.... time will tell.

So lots of desperate sellers I'd bet.

Irn-bru

Actually getting a good real estate agent to me was one of the most helpful things. I went with http://www.naeba.com/ this is a wing of the national realtors, who are EXCLUSIVE BUYERS AGENT. (To get recommendations for your area hit the find a buyer's agent.) That site also tells you what questions you should ask, etc. I put in I was looking for someone who was british or knew the british system and I got an excellent ex pat agent who has one the top local awards around here! So I could ask him questions I didn't understand re US systems etc.
I interviewed a few different realtors asking if they had this buyers qualification it was interesting that the ones who didn't have it were quick to dismiss it - and they were the ones to me that didn't seem professional to me in attitude or anything else!
This following might not be for you but we joined AIG and can't speak highly enough of them (anything financial they do -insurance all types mortgages etc).
We moved with a huge company and there people were pathetic, we have recommended AIG to other ex pats now and they all use them and like them (especially good if you want to come straight over and buy).

They have a small joining fee yearly but saved that alone in insuring 1 car with them! They don't care what your credit score is (they specialise in international moves) ours had a mistake in it,(they sorted that out, but still went with them) but gave us a quote for a mortgage that was the same or better than others. (They use wells fargo, but going through AIG was a lot better quote than going to wells fargo directly). And the general fees for mortgage was given up front and still comparable.

There was no way we could get 20% down but worked out i think we can get rid of our pmi in 2 yrs.
Suze orman does shows on cnn re finance and has her own website - very good for basic info and links etc.

Rockgurl

I bought the Suze Orman book and the Home Buying for Dummies.....they're invaluable. You can also avoid the PMI by getting a 95%/5% mortgage if you don't have 20% saved up. That's what we did and we're moving in in two weeks! It would have taken us so long to save the money we would have wasted money paying rent so after too many years of renting we're now going to have our own house. In fact....here's a pic of it! I hope you don't mind me hijacking this thread to show off me new digs The house isn't quite finished as it's a new build but the kitchen and bathrooms go in next week.

Irn-bru

That house is sooo beautiful (so are your appliances) you must be so happy. That looks like my dream house! Well you are living the american dream (well to me anyhow ) And trees too! Hope you have many wonderful years and happy and great times!

coffee or tea?

Nice house! Is it in the middle of nowhere?

Rockgurl

Thank you! It's my dream house too and I can't quite believe it's mine...not sunk in yet! It's on 3 acres of woodland so we have a lot of space, and it's in a really rural town so everything is very green. It's got easy access to the highway though, so getting anywhere is a breeze. I guess what they say about the American Dream is true....anyone can do it.