WOW! What a Selection of Homes!

Three Up, and All Three Winners
Yesterday was really a good day in the "home search" for us. Our agent took both of us to see one house that was was on my list, which turned out to be a foreclosure. Then the agent and I went to see the house that hubby and I had already seen on Sunday, plus one other that I had put on my list of possibilities. All three homes met our "needs" with the latter two being 'move-in ready.' The foreclosure is missing some light fixtures, and since the utilities are off, there of course are some questions as to whether this works and that works, but it appears to be in very good condition just from looking at it. When I returned home after seeing the last home, I went over all the houses and our agent's input on each with my husband. We then discussed the pros and cons of each house and came to a discision to get more info on the foreclosure.

According to my research, foreclosures are on the increase these days due to several factors, one of which is those ARMs over the last few years. Buyer's who jumped in on those low "bait" interest rates are now finding they have mortgages that have 'adjusted'...just as stated... with increases of hundreds per month as the Fed has increased the interest rate. Buying a foreclosure will be different from buying a "regular" house from a seller. There definitely may be delays since the buyer would be dealing with a bank or mortgage company via a Real Estate agent. Our agent was quick to point out that I was breaking my #1 rule about "No more business owners" but if we know what is expected ahead of time and the reason for the delay, it is much different than what appeared to be 'disinterest' and just down right bad manners that we experienced with the Rosewood Valley house. (Something Southerners don't take kindly to!) There are also very specific methods/steps for purchasing a foreclosure depending on what kind of foreclosure it is. HUD, VA and various titleholders will have different methods and restrictions related to everything from how to see a house, how and when to do inspections, making an Offer to Purchase and whom can make the offer and so on. This is where having your own agent to guide and assist you really pays off.

I am not ruling the other two houses out yet since dealing with a foreclosure is "hazardous" by nature in my opinion and requires extra care, but if things should turn out in our favor, we would have a wonderful home. We'll see. I have to admit....when I started this blog, I didn't expect to be "learning first hand" so much about buying various types of property. This always seems to happen to me though. I'll end up knowing much more about this process than I ever thought I would....or really want to! I am just after one house!

Mortgage Lenders

The Choice of What Company Gets Your $$$$$$$!
The average consumer makes no larger investment than the home that they purchase. This is a general fact that everyone should know. Hopefully today's home buyer is a bit more educated than many were years ago thanks to the internet and ease of gathering info 24/7. That is one of my purposes for this site. To help show where I gathered info from, what we go through in this process and the lessons we learn.

In this process for us, since it is a LARGE task, I kind of divided things into two areas. 1) Dealing with the Bank/Mortgage Company, and 2) Finding/Dealing with House/Realtor. The #1 job I assigned to my husband and I took the #2 job. Now understand that we both still function with equal say in both areas, but there is so much to handle that for us, it was much better to "divide and conquer." All the experts say to "shop interest rates" and they explain what you are looking for. We had decided ahead of time that we were only interested in FIXED rate mortgage and did our research to get an understanding of what POINTS were and what were the pros and cons in that area. We also made a decision that we wanted to try to use as little money as possible for a down payment in order to preserve our savings and still allow some money for emergencies. (In other words, we didn't want to spend every nickle we had to get into the house we purchased) We set a limit on what our monthly payment would be, and we stuck to this limit. We didn't go in saying "How much house can we buy?" We felt that this would better enable us to have the spending money we wanted to enjoy the home and do the "projects" we were seeking. All too often, home buyers will get a mortgage that straps them so bad that they have no money left to even buy curtains to cover their new windows much less anything else.

Despite my objections, the mortgage company was selected by my husband. I still withhold judgement at this point because so far....I have actually seen nothing but TYPICAL performance. The clock is ticking....

Will it happen?