What I'm Doing

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Buying a House, Part VIII

Okay, so I've not updated in a while. A lot has happened.

Where I left off, we had sent in an offer on a house we really liked, and had to wait over the weekend to hear back from the bank that's selling it.

The next Monday, I got a call from Eric, our Realtor, and the bank wanted to accept our offer, with a couple changes: 1) shorten the due diligence period (the time in which we have to do inspections and, if we find something we don't like, can walk on the house and recoup our earnest money) to 7 days instead of the 14 days we'd asked for, and 2) move the closing date to April 16 (we'd asked for March 31). Eric talked them out to 10 due diligence days, and we got a closing date on April 9 (or sooner if we can manage it). However, if we miss the April 9 closing date, the bank wants to charge us $100 per day (alternatively, they can walk on the deal).

So, we came to an agreement, and put the house under contract. Woo!

Last week, I received the Good Faith Estimate from our lender, a guy Eric knows and recommended at Countrywide. Now, stupid me, we had just gone with the guy Eric recommended rather than shopping around. Frankly, I hate dealing with money, and I wouldn't really have known what to look for, anyway.

Fortunately, a coworker of mine used to work at a mortgage company and had learned about all this kind of stuff, so I took my copy of the Good Faith to him, and he looked it over and told me I could be getting a much better deal. I decided I needed to shop around while I still could, so I told the lender at Countrywide I wasn't ready to lock in on the loan yet, and let him know I was going to shop around.

Because the closing date was so close, we weren't able to use Kristen's credit union, which probably would've been ideal. In the end, though, I found a good deal with my own bank (I got half a percent lower rate than Countrywide could offer me, for one thing), and locked in with them Friday afternoon.

Then, on Monday, Kristen and I met with the inspector we'd ordered and did a detailed look over the house. This guy seemed very thorough, and we were there for 3 hours. We found one major issue: the water pressure regulator is broken, so the pressure inside the house is way too high. Fortunately, we have the valve closed at the moment, which should protect the appliances. Eric spoke with a contractor he knows to get an estimate on fixing that and the other bigger issues, and is going to try to get the bank to pay for those repairs.

In addition, we went by the company we have our car and renter's insurance with, and spoke with them about insuring the house. They have contacted the bank, so once the appraisal comes back, they'll be able to tell us how much insurance will be.

As of right now, we're waiting on the bank to get the appraisal done, and everything should be set. God-willing, by April 9, we should have a house. And then the next adventure: moving. Who wants to help (I don't know when we'll be moving yet, but I plan on being moved before Holy Week, which in our Church is April 20-26)?

1 comment:

JW said...

Yay! Congrats! If the move is the weekend of the 18th and 19th then I'm in to help move. I love helping move, it's one of my favorite things! (I think I am a little odd like that...)