Dear Mike Lussier, beef up my tatty yo!

 

Speedbumps

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

 

The sky is wide open

I figure I owe an update on the Proctor sisters.  Miss 17 Proctor actually got me to ask for a second date (showing).  It has definite potential, but needs a few major jobs.  The majorest is moving the bathroom out of the kitchen, and then repairing what’s left behind in the kitchen.  The second majorest would be to bust through the wall that separates the two tiny rooms they call bedrooms.  (None of the “3″ bedrooms in this house is anywhere near normal size, which I’d guess is the primary reason this house hasn’t sold.) 

There are other smaller, but not entirely small must-dos, including the professional “trimming” of an extremely tall, extremely overgrown oak that’s leaning on power lines and close to the house.  That’s actually not a very cheap job.  Additionally, the front steps absolutely have to be redone — that one I could probably do if I put my mind to it.

So to get into that house, I’d have to get a rehab loan, which typically only funds you for a percentage (example 90%) of the new total, meaning you have to have the rest in cash at the outset of the project (in the form of a down payment).  It comes out to about 18K, which would be very funny if it wasn’t so sad.

So, our 3rd date is on Sunday at 11am.  You may have just guessed that she was off the list, but there is a very remote chance that my grandparents may see the potential here and wish to get in on the investment.  After all, the location is excellent and the house would be worth twice as much if it had a normal layout.  If I was thinking really long term, the house should have a second floor, but I may not be the gal for such an endeavor any time too soon.

So tonight I’m seeing a townhouse-style condo in Weymouth.  I’ve actually seen another unit in this complex, but the one I’m seeing today is an end unit, making it ever so slightly larger than the other one, as well as quieter, and with a fireplace.  Guess what the square footage is on this one, and assume that it’s bad…

600 sq ft.

Yeah, stop laughing, it’s not easy being green.

If you recall from a previous lesson on real estate terms, this one would be “cute”, meaning nice but small.  I’ll give you a walk through.

 

Here she is from the outside… in winter:

This is what you’d see if a ghost had just opened the front door while you were standing just about in the kitchen, or on the other end of the room pictured here.

This is the right side of the kitchen.  The refrigerator would go on the other side of the stove there.  Notice the stove is electric and there’s no dishwasher, yech.  But yes, that there is a little bit of granite counter.

Here’s the fireplace, in the main room which must serve as living and dining.  Right now, I think the brick and brass are very ugly, but with a little money, wood, and marbe tile, this could be a nice focal point.  Hope it works!

This is the second floor.  You’d see this from right in front of the bathroom.  To the left is the linen closet and in front of you is one of the two bedrooms.

The other bedroom, or inside the one we just peered in.  They’re about the same size.

Bedroom or office for me.

Mama like hardwoods and fireplace, and fortuantely yellow walls as well.  The fireplace could be rehabbed, and the kitchen is small and needs some careful strategizing to add a dishwasher and some built in seating.

So I’ll see that tonight at 7.  It’s listed at 120K, and Christina gave me the inside scoop that this was bought for 102K by a contractor who put in the shiny amenities, and they tried to resell it for 137K, but it didn’t.  This is certainly not the boom, but years ago this townhouse sold for around 160K, so the thought with buying this would be to make improvements to the kitchen, bath, and fireplace, and then wait for a good time to sell.

In totally unrelated news (well, related to the Subject, which I have plagiarized) you should listen to Jake La Botz.

 

Thrills

I finally saw two places I really liked, both in Roslindale.  One was a “charming” 2bdrm 1ba (this is real estate code for very nice, but on the small side), and the other was an “insanely enormous” (not code) 2bdrm 1.5ba with a potential 3rd bdrm in the finished attic, and a certain bar/lounge potential in the finished basement.  We’re talking shiny hardwood floors, awesome windows, and recessed lighting throughout.  The second one had a nice outdoor space too.

I’m not moving on either because they both had some downsides, but I’m keeping my eye on both.  They’ve been on the market for a while, so we can take it slow.

Tomorrow, I’m meeting the Bob man at 10am in Quincy to do a 15 house circuit: Quincy, Braintree, Weymouth, ending in Hyde Park.  Wish luck!

 

Mentaldoodles.

The prospect of house-buying, I have come to conclude, is a major distraction from anything and everything else imaginable.  I had thought, when I first got serious, that my days of mental absenteeism would diminish once the excitement wore off, but I’ve found that the closer you feel you are to the actual event of buying property, 1) the more exciting it is and 2) the more there is to frantically research, and mull over in the mind.

I even slept distractedly, waking up the middle of imaginary debates over the design schemes of imaginary houses.  I probably shouldn’t have watched 5 hours of HGTV last night.  I really find that channel addictive these days.

My mind is particularly in left field (if working is home plate) because I have an appointment to look at more houses this evening, one in particular that I’m fixated on.  I got out of bed (exhaustedly) at 7am, got into the office at 8:30, and have to stay here for another 2 hours and 20 minutes…  It feels like an eternity.  I know excitement about seeing this property is unwise, but if this one turned out to be what I want it to be, I would be really happy about it.

It’s in Natick, which would clearly be a great place to buy, and it’s an estate sale (the house was left to someone, and they’re selling it).  It’s apparently zoned as a 2 family, and has been listed as both a single and a multi (weird flip-flopping) so I’m expecting something funky to be going on with regard to this… who knows what.

If this could be refined into a functional 2 family, given that the asking price is low even for a single family in this neighborhood (or any, really) it would pretty much be the smartest thing I could buy.  The ability to fix up one area (unit) and rent it while fixing the other.  And forever more have a second income on the property.

The major question mark and reason for skepticism here, is that this 3bdrm, 2 ba antique house is listed at nearly 200K less than the assessment amount.   So, one must ask the beleagured question “what’s wrong with it?”  I’m mentally prepping myself for a repeat of the Hough’s Neck abomination, since this house is also old, but if this one has things that house didn’t, such as a furnace and a kitchen, perhaps I could consider it.  Natick is, after all, a better investment than Hough’s Neck.

Aaahhh, good brainpurge sesh.  Hopefully I can get back to work now.  =)

 

Somewhere out there, beneath the pale moon light…

I’m utterly distracted today.  Christina’s mom showed me a single family in Weymouth last night, and I didn’t sleep much, thinking about ways to improve it.  It was an old house, cute on the outside, corner lot with a good size yard.  Some aspects of it weren’t ideal, but thankfully, it wasn’t another comically bad property.

Today, I’m not preoccupied by that house specifically, so much as the whole house-finding/house-buying endeavor.  I’m popping out of work for an hour in the early afternoon to meet with a buyer’s agent; I think it would be smart for me to work with one.  Have someone else on Team Angela.

As for considering Weymouth, taking the drive out there last night made me further agree (with myself) that it would behoove me (love that word) to situate (myself) in a more central location within my scope of travel.  The furthest point South I need to access is Quincy, and the furthest points West I need to access are Newton for work and Watertown for Mom.  There’s a lot of expensiveness along that route — 128 — that falls in-between, but who knows — maybe the worst house on the block somewhere will end up being my diamond in the rough.  (I can’t use that expression without thinking of Aladdin.) 

I’ve flip-flopped a lot on the condo vs. single family question.  There’s certainly more in my price range with a condo, and there’s the fact that lenders will give you slightly more mortgage money toward the principal since the master insurance and other maintenance things will be covered in the monthly condo fee. 

I know my heart prefers a single family, but I think that just like with most things in life, you can’t always get what you want right out the gates.  Sometimes you have to put in your dues while gaining the wisdom of life experience, and in this case building ownership equity.

Reasons I’d prefer a condo:

• Less worry about things I don’t know shit about (roofs, freakin boilers, furnaces)
• More affordable (price of property, but also other expenses like water and sewer that it’s easy to forget about)

Reasons I’d prefer a single family:

• Privacy
• Remodeling freedom
• No pet restrictions

Too bad townhouse style condos are as ungodly expensive as they are, because I think that’s what I’d like most.  I really like stairs, that is to say, I really like my living area consising of more than one floor, regardless of how narrow each floor may be.

I’ve been thinking about buying for so long now.  It’s been my plan since I graduated in ‘05 and my dream for just about as long as I can remember.  There’s something so sentimental about having a place to hang your hat, a place to call your own.  Through my experience of having moved to different apartments throughout my childhood, and also worrying about us being able to make rent even as a kid, I’ve come to value two things most: permanence and investment.  Permanence, because I’d like to stay somewhere for a while, really make it mine, and investment, because is there any bigger slap in the face than paying rent every month and ultimately having nothing to show for it?

I’m lucky that at 24, just when my goals of buying have started to become a financial possibility, the market is so turned in my favor.  I feel like it’s a sign to me that this really is the time for me to buy, and that it would be a missed opportunity not to take advantage of it.

Anyway, at this very moment I’m thankfully to WordPress for giving me a forum to get my thoughts out.  I think the biggest thing I need to have as a potential buyer (aside from money) is a solid sense of what the hell I’m looking for.