Gloriaperpetua’s Weblog

So, in a last minute turn of events, I decided to go with Radius Financial.  In doing so, I locked in at the same rate, but will pay fewer points (paid upfront at the closing) for that rate. 

An annoying hassle has transpired as a result of getting involved with Bank of America in the first place.  Large beast of a corporation that it is, it takes 2 different departments to release my case number with the federal housing administration… the first has a turnaround time of 48 hours and the second 72, and considering we’re supposed to close in 3 business days, this is somewhat disheartening.

Of course, when we close is not as important to me as it would be to some.  Though I’ll pay about $22 a day (in my case, based on the loan amount) this is actually the interest-only portion of your mortgage payment.  So, you’d be paying this amount added to the principal in your regular mortgage payment if you had closed and were actually living there.  Since I don’t have to be out of my current place, it’s basically heads or tails to me. 

But I so want to have my housewarming/birthday party on my actual bday, since it just so happens to fall on a Saturday (Oct 11).  It’ll be a mad dash to get at least some of the painting done before the housewarming, and move what little furniture I have in, just so the place will look nice when I have people over.  Must steam clean carpets, Oxiclean the wood on the terrace, and buy some lamps.

Even if I don’t have the housewarming on the 11th, it’s going to be fantastic to be able to go over there/be in there on my 25th birthday this year.  I can still have a bday dinner party, even if I don’t have a table or any chairs, right?  You certainly don’t need colorful walls to eat pizza.

<3 Happy Girl

Today is a Tom Waits day.  I feel agitated. 

Bank of America approved me for the loan, which should make me happy, but the person I’m working with there fails to call me back to schedule an appointment.

Additionally, this guy at Radius Financial is doing cartwheels with flaming batons in his teeth trying to get my business.  He says he can save me 3K up front, which is basically the difference between my having some furniture or no furniture at all.  However, the application fee to even see if he can secure financing is $1,111.  This shit is fucking expensive.

I drew and photographed the tattoo drawing I came up with last night.  Forgot digital camera, will upload tomorrow.  Open wrought iron gate with climbing roses on it, and a hovering bright heart with a key in it.  Plan to send it to Mike Lussier at Art Freek to much-better-ify it, but not yet, cuz it’s fairly large and now is definitely not the time to pay for it.

Got good news yesterday — Laura’s most likely going to be in Boston for my housewarming party!  She and I have painted eachother’s bedrooms throughout the years.  Even though Laura lives in LA now, her presence still makes any place feel like home.  ”Real talk.”  =)

Just one “point” of knowledge today, on the subject of “points”:

• You’ll get a certain interest rate on your loan based on your credit score, everyone knows this… but what I just learned is you can actually pay down the interest rate by giving money up front in exchange for “points”.  This is my current problem with the B of A loan — the 5.5% insterest rate they’ve offered me is based on my paying 2 points (or $3,000).  This is why Radius claims they can save me $3,000 — because they’re offering me a loan at 5.5% with zero points paid.

Today I have a bit of advice to anyone going through the real estate purchase process.  People told me that finding people (buyer’s agents, a lawyer, a loan officer) that were readily available and able to answer your questions was of supreme importance.  Going on referrals (another way to prescreen), I found people in each of those categories, and when they were on their cell and always available and helpful to me, I decided to give them my business loyalty.

My warning is that, if you’re smart, there should be no loyalty in business unless you’ve signed a contract.  To be more to the point, if you get preapproved from a bank, go ahead and get preapproved by 3 more, find someone good to work with at each of them, and inform all of them of your purchase decision if and when you make one.

I did get preapproval from 3 banks, and when they were all for the same amount, I decided to continue to work with the individual agent that had been most helpful.  I contacted only him when I decided to put in an offer (in order to get a revised preapproval letter to give to the seller with my offer… this is so they don’t see your max amount, but only approval for you to get financing for the price of their sale).  I went along with Citizen’s Bank all the way until the mortgage paperwork (application, estimates) were mailed to my house.

On Tuesday, I walked in from work to find a large manilla envelope containing these documents.  I sat down to review them only to find they were figuratively in Chinese.  I hunkered down, intent on getting through them, and lo and behold, when reviewing the numbers I found an error.  The loan officer had either believed you could add rental income to the buyer’s gross income on a single family (dead wrong) or just randomly decided that I should be paid $850 more a month than I actually make.

I called him, and yes, he was accessible at 7pm — answered his cell — but when someone’s always accessible TO APOLOGIZE for making egregious errors that change all of your numbers, you don’t necessarily even want to be able to talk to them.  In the end Citizen’s denied me the loan… and I had been “banking” on them………  I love cheap jokes. 

With 48 hours before the scheduled signing of the purchase and sale agreement, I had to try to find financing with another lender, and let me not keep you in suspense, I DID.  I’m working with someone at Bank of America, and I have another agent at a well known lending institution in my pocket just incase B of A drops the ball.

Another thing to know is that by the signing of the purchase and sale agreement, you must have a very reasonable belief that you will obtain the financing you need with a specific lender.  However, your commitment date is later, so even if you believe you’ll get financing at the time of the purchase and sale, if you withdraw before the commitment date you won’t lose your deposit.

So today is September 12, 2008 and I am going to get a bank check for the total of my down payment (that alone is scary) and then I’m driving it (seatbelted) to my buyer’s agent’s office in Weymouth where I will sign the purchase and sale agreement.  Steps that come after that are as follows:

• The bank waits for a reply from the underwriter, who may have further questions on the application, or who may immediately approve the application.
• The bank sends out an appraiser to the property to confirm that it’s worth at least what you’re paying for it.
• If your financing is a go, you attend the closing as scheduled (in the time frame decided upon at the offer (by you and your agent, and agreed to by the seller and seller’s agent)
• The closing is a conference room type deal, with the seller, buyer, seller’s agent, buyer’s agent — though if the seller (as in my case) is out of state, they can give their agent Power of Attorney, meaning the agent can sign their own signature in place of the seller’s signature)
• The closing is when you officially sign a hundred thousand documents and leave the meeting with the keys to your new place!!!!!

I’m working on sketching a tattoo as this is a very momentous happening.  An open gate and a heart with a key inside it… but believe you me, I will not be getting inked any time before I have the keys physically in hand.  Speedbumps are part of the process!!!!!

Love,

Your very happy friend

So, I have neglected to post about the house hunt lately for the very best of reasons… I finally found it!!!  After family friend Evie the real estate agent showed me the itsy-bitsy townhouse below, she told me there may be a unit in my price range in the desireable Arbor Hill condo community, also in Weymouth. 

I saw unit T5, a 1300 sq ft 2bdrm 2ba +den, open living and dining room, laundry room in unit, and lovely private terrace, last Saturday, August 30th, and I put in an offer this past Monday, August 1st around noontime.  At 8pm that night, I heard that my offer had been accepted.  The seller even agreed to refund $5,000 of the purchase price to me at the closing, to pay for closing costs, per my request.

With the offer accepted, and the home inspection having gone smoothly today, here’s what’s left in the process:

• Review of the condo docs (rules and regulations set by the condo association that all unit owners must comply with).  I have these in hand and will review this weekend.
• Review of the condo association’s financial statements.  I will receive these early next week and send them directly to the lawyer I’ve hired, Ms. Nicole Cox.
• Nicole will complete review of the purchase and sale agreement, add any potential contingencies or corrections, and the purchase and sale agreement will be signed by myself and the seller.
• I’ll give a 3% deposit to the seller at the signing of the purchase and sale to be held in escrow (which means held but not cashed –given back to either me or the bank at closing, depending on the loan I go for)
• The bank sends out the full loan application for underwriting (approval and drawing up of exact loan terms) based on all my financial records (which they already have in hand).
• Once the bank gets back to us (and they’re aiming for Sept 30) we’ll have the closing, which is when I’ll officially sign my life away and get the keys!  Both brokers (real estate agents) and my lawyer (since the seller doesn’t have a lawyer, heh heh heh) will be present at the closing.

Pictures!  I have new found appreciation for people who have to photograph properties.  It’s incredibly hard to find a decent angle to photograph a room with a regular camera.  I should have used the landscape feature on my digital, but I didn’t think of it until it was too late.

Click for larger views.

Living room, sliding doors to terrace

A sub-par picture of the dining area/front hall closet/door to master

Master bedroomMaster bedroom

Master bedroom

Master bath

Master bath

Laundry room!

Kitchen

Kitchen

My office

My bedroom

  That funky silver stuff in the closet is insulation — I’ll need to put in some cedar paneling, not too hard.

Guest bathroom

Guest bathroom

Private terraceTotally fenced in

 

Yay!

I’m a very happy girl.  The master suite will be rented for $800-$900+utils.  Please let me know if you’re interested.  Will continue to post about the rest of the process… and furniture and design!  I’m becoming a feng-shui master, with all the reading I’ve been doing.