Do the right thing, buy in the city.
I’ll try explaining it one more time then I give up.
you’re selling a house and you want $100 for it after all fees, taxes, whatever.
how much the buyer pays total will be more than $100 because of commissions etc. As a seller you don’t care how much that really is as long as you get your $100.
If the buyer pays a lower commission then they will get the house for less money.
Exact same thing I said with different words…
The difference is that sellers tend to have a solid number they will accept whereas buyers want a given house for the best price they can get. Therefor buyers don’t care what the commission rate is.
I think you meant sellers for one of those.
But regardless, we were both trying to get to the same point, coming at it different directions; Realtor can increase the cost to the buyer (and decrease the $$ the seller gets for the house, therefore having to ask more for the house).
203K or Rehab loans are a sweet idea if you want to finance extra money to customize or fix up a place. There is one huge problem with this though - You will be dealing with someone at a desk at a bank who knows little to nothing about local codes, contractors, renovations or anything beyond their stupid, pointless generic copy & paste paperwork.
My contractor was d!cked around for weeks after replacing my boiler as the bank was tied up in selling the mortgage to M&T and couldn’t release the balance of the invoice. They “didn’t realize we’d have the work done so quickly”. Mind you, the contract stated work must start within 30days and this was to replace a boiler in WNY in late November.
Just prepare mentally to deal with several trained professional experts that will complicate the process, act as if they added some value to the transaction, skim a few bucks off the top and waste some of your time.
I did all sorts of research when I purchased my house. The only thing I wish I did was think about what I really wanted from a house. IE neighborhood, living in the sticks, etc. Over all I’m happy with my place but I always think about different things. As one can see by my ownership of a million cars.
My dad has sold two places and once you sign with an agent they have rights to the commission regardless. So you have a house for $100K and agree to pay out 6%. If the buyer doesn’t have an agent, the agent you signed with gets all 6%. If the buy does have an agent the selling agent splits the money with the buying agent. Either way once a place is on the market through a agency, if it is sold the 6% will be paid out. This contract usually lasts 6 months after the contract ends as far as I know. Normally if you have a $100K house and you want $100K for it you’ll list it at $115K assuming you’ll negotiate down to $110K and have to cover $10K in costs receiving a total of $100K for your home.
The only place I could see this really helping is if the house is for sale by owner.
http://askville.amazon.com/fees-pay-sell-house-owner-realtor/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=2679312
agreed.
this is not always true… it’s very negotiable. If the selling agent expect 3% there is lot of room for discussion, after all they don’t get anything if the house doesn’t sell.
Eh… it’s defined in the sellers contract to sell how much the sellers realtor gets/splits. Not much negotiation possible on an already signed contract.
Can’t you two start your own thread? lol
Nope, I prefer :sb: on this one! LOL!
Glad I’m not the only one. I’ve been here almost 3 years and can’t wait to get the hell out. I only looked at 4 houses, the first and 4th sucked, I lost out on the 2nd, so I bought this one. I’ve slowly realized I bought a house like I buy old cars. I want something NOW, and end up buying the first cheap version of that car I find, looking at everything with rose-colored glasses. I slowly realize it’s hopeless, and sell it. If I buy another one, it’s twice the price and 100% worth it. Hopefully that’s how my second house will be. Unfortunately I can’t toss my old house up on Craigs and be behind the wheel of a new one easily.
I have a contractor here right now fixing my roof and dryer venting. The home inspector noticed that it would eventually need replacing, only because there were some old water stains on a ceiling. The roof of the addition sagged a bit, but he said it wasn’t a big deal. Well, it (was) sagging because the fucking hack that owned the place cheaped out on lumber and the boards are way too far apart. The flashing was totally wrong. The roof didn’t overlap the siding in a bunch of places, so the water ran down behind it, causing algae on the siding that just kept coming back. A roof vent was put in, in the wrong spot, because the dryer vent was rotted out underneath, venting all the moisture into the attic! The rest of it vented through the crumbling plastic hose inside my wall. The wall was also full of peanut and walnut shells, no joke. The dryer was wired right into the wall and to the box, no plug. This is just what was found from one repair, and none of this was pointed out by the inspector, and most of it should have been obvious to him. I guess it’s a simple course to get certified. I’m having the contractor, who we’ve known for 20 years, inspect my next house.
As days went by I started finding things, more stuff that was crooked, built wrong, both fixable and non-fixable stuff. Considering the house is also basically in a low point (hello drainage issues), and the ceilings are about 7’, getting it looking straight and the way I want it won’t happen unless I level it. The newer additions are almost worse than the settled 1930 main portion. Oh, and the cell phone tower that sprang up that the POs new about. The property is beautiful, but the house is only great for people who want a basic house to crash in and can deal with imperfection. I can’t.
It’s not all bad though. Now I know exactly what I want and don’t want in a house, what I can and can’t live with. I’m looking at everything differently. I advise multiple inspections, and bringing any professionals you happen to know well in too. Figure in the “X-factors”, like that beautiful property right next door that may be leveled for a bunch of McMansions. Also, if you ask, sellers have to reveal, so ask every possible question you may have before buying. If you don’t ask, they probably won’t tell you.
Airhead - sounds like my nightmare… I look at my first house as a painful experience as what not to do that taught me all the gotcha’s for next time. It was and still is painful $$ wise; but it could have been 10000X worse.
My personal thought is the next house I own… I’m building exactly to my specifications, to my level of finish. (And to just show how anal I am about fit and finish, I critiqued my SIL/BIL’s 1.4 million dollar brand new house in CA… Got called Howard Hughes because I pointed out how all the electrical cover plate screws were perfectly vertical throughout the house!)
Can’t do that anymore. 80/20 loans are a thing of the past. Plus the bank wants to see the source of ANY money you use for closing costs/down payment. You can’t get a loan for closing costs. That’s a big no no.
Seller’s concession ftw
just to clear it all up…technically the closing agent is the one who takes and disperses all of the monies involved in the transaction. the checks the seller’s agent and buyer’s agent get are typically checks from the closing agent not written by the buyer or the seller themselves. even the buyer themselves typically gets a check from the closing agent, not ABC mortgage company or who ever is providing the money to buy the house.
i would also say from my experience buying and selling homes no one (me included) just drops 3% off the cost because you don’t have an agent. i don’t really care if i’m giving you a break on the price since i get the same amount of money either way. i’d much rather have the seller agent give me back the 3% instead of give it to you. the typical 6% is already baked into the number and unless we are talking about a pretty expensive house i’m not going to split hairs with you over 3% unless you are going to offer asking price off right off the bat. if you go in with a low-ball offer then try to claim you are saving the buyer 3% you probably should just move onto a different house.
that said, making sure the closing agent isn’t an idiot is very helpful. go to their place for the closing, sometimes it will save you a few bucks on closing costs.
it is also an advantage of having an agent, they usually have some good relationships with closing agents and can get some of those travel fees waived if they do a lot of work with them.
Sellers conession has a limit, I think it was 1.5% purchase price on a conventional.
And yes, closing costs + down payment need to be cash. I sold one of my welders, so that was an extra $4.5k I had to dump in my bank account. I told the lady about it… Because she said any large deposits I’d have to explain etc… I was like well, It was cash… and I don’t have a receipt or anything… So what I ended up having to do was give the money to my parents, then my parents filled out a gift forum that just states they’re giving me $4.5k that I don’t have to repay. I had to do this even though it was my own money to begin with because I couldn’t technically give a source of the cash.
Sidenote; When I closed on my house I went to the closing office down town buffalo. It was upstairs of the City grill a few days after the shooting that had happened. There were a bunch of guys replacing windows, and I was wondering I wonder what the hell is going on here? When I was driving away after closing I realized that was where the shooting was…
Very good statements right there, really try to save up the best you can for 20% down. Try to avoid an FHA loan, you are locked into paying PMI for 5 years even if you have +20% equity after 2 years.
So many people I know live beyond their means…not worth it.
In NY be prepared for the shit storm. Been through two nightmare closings, don’t get your heart set on the closing date. It will likely get all screwed up, lawyers after all are involved. It’s easier to buy a house than a car in FL, NY is a disaster. Keep your chin up, plan for the worst and hope for the best. Loan processor = Friend. They get paid to make shit happen. Underwriter = the fucking devil. They get paid to look like they’re making shit happen, but suck out loud. They will ask you for the same crap over and over, say they lost it, never got it, etc etc. If you show a deposit for a few grand cash/check (not payroll) within the past 6 months, expect them to ask why. If you got some cash from family (my mom threw me a few grand for grins to help) they went 6 months deep in her finances too, over $2k. I have a Realtor who’s a friend of the family, IE: I got to their house for Xmas friend of family. She’s NFG when it comes to doing a deal to make money, vs. doing a deal that’s worth doing. We walked through houses, and made fun of all the HGTV destroy it yourself renovation attempts to try to make $20k off painting cabinets etc. If you’d like her digits, let me know. My only problems stemmed from underwriters, and lazy lawyers. Oh, and buyers who got arrested for stealing antique guns the day before closing and being in jail, then on bond going on a 4 day bender, and me having a welfare check done, State PD breaking down his door, arrest again, hospitalized for detox, filing suit for breech of contract, family having buyer hospitalized, take POA from him and cut me the check so I could close. Other than that smooth as butter…