Closing on house tomorrow morning

[Uppsala9496]

Walk through at 08:30 tomorrow morning and closing at 09:30.

Closing costs are at $15,354 due to taxes, taxes and more taxes. Just insane, but I knew that going in. They want the escrow funded for the year.

Title agency costs are not cheap in the Chicago area. Shopped around and the best I could get is $2,848 for title services and title insurance and $1,430 for owners title insurance.
Working in the insurance industry, I just couldn't talk myself out of not taking the owners title insurance. In the grand scheme of things it really isn't that much. Less than half a percent of the cost of the house.

Title services came out a little higher than the good faith estimate, but the owners title insurance is a bit less. All told I'm some $300 cheaper.

30 years at 3.75%. I should have it paid off in 15 years since I'll be adding $500 a month to each payment. No change in lifestyle doing that.

Having wire transferred my 40% down payment had reality set in. Been a bit of a nervous wreck all day and I'm sure I won't sleep good tonight. Going from $0 debt (currently renting) and a really nice bank statement to now having a much smaller bank statement and a house is setting in.

I think it's time for a beer or maybe that nice bottle of wine I have been saving...


Lived in a 1,200 sqft condo for 10 years and have been renting a 1,400 sqft townhome the last 3. House is 3,700 sqft on the main and upper levels and has a 2,000 sqft finished basement (less ceiling which I'll be putting in next weekend).

That means furniture shopping....ugh. Wife and I have different taste. Hers is wrong and mine is right.

 

[MongGrel]

That's a big future man cave

:thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

[NutBucket]

40% down? Wow.

I guess reality bites in SoCal

 

[Ophir]

Congrats and good luck ... but 40% down on a 3.75% loan? Wow. You and I see money in very different ways.

 

[Scarpozzi]

Congrats and good luck ... but 40% down on a 3.75% loan? Wow. You and I see money in very different ways.

Trying to make the monthly payment manageable probably has a lot to do with that.


Just remember you're not paying someone else to live in that house, you're building equity. I bought my second house about 6 years ago and will hopefully start making a dent in the principle in another few years (refinanced with longer terms when the rates dropped).

 

[CPA]

Why didn't you just buy out of escrow?

 

[thestrangebrew1]

Congrats. That's a huge house!

 

[Uppsala9496]

Paperwork done. House is now mine (or banks depending on how you look at it).

Reason for the 40% down was that the home is in my name only (homestead state so I can't sell without the wife's permission) and my salary is not that great.
In order to make the debt to income ratio work, I had to put down a large down payment. My wife makes more than I do and none of her finances were taken into account. She isn't eligible for a mortgage until September due to a short sale in her name.

So house in my name. Current mortgage payment is only $200 more than our rent payment. We had to pay off both cars so that I had $0 consumer debt to qualify for the loan (sad to payoff a 0.9% loan in one lump sum when there were still 20 months left on the loan). Taking what we used to pay in car payments and what we were paying in rent means I am paying an additional $500 a month on the principal with no change in lifestyle.

Have plenty of cash reserves (2 years mortgage payments) and have 3 years worth of payments in taxable ETF's that I am hoping in 6 years can have some earnings withdrawn to paydown the mortgage. Made sure we are not house rich and cash poor.


Oh and didn't buy out of escrow since interest rates are so damn low it didn't seem worth it to me. Once less hassle. Rates go up in the future (above my 3.75% loan rate) I will pull the escrow into savings and earn a little.

 

[MustISO]

Congrats. Hope you got to know the people at Lowes/Home Depot, you'll be seeing them a lot. Our house was new construction when we moved in and I was still there almost every weekend for a few months. Furniture shopping can be pretty nuts. there's plenty of cheap/cheaply made stuff out there and the good stuff is damn expensive. My advice is to buy on the cheaper side as your taste will change over time. If you're totally sold on something than go for it but we made the mistake of buying an expensive couch when we moved in and 3 years later realized it was too little seating for having people over.

 

[Uppsala9496]

I think we have narrowed down what we want regarding couches. Have a rather large sectional that I used to like about 5 years ago when it was new. That is now getting put in the loft that is turning into the play room for my daughter.
Damn thing just isn't comfortable anymore.

 

[Mixolydian]

Where ya movin to?

 

[lsd]

Congrats on the house. Did you look into Entitle direct for title insurance/closing? They are a good bit cheaper than most and we used them with our refi without issue.

 

[Uppsala9496]

Where ya movin to?

Moved from Naperville to Oswego. Amazing what you get for the price.
Traffic out here sucks though. I work in Naperville and have gone from a 15 minute drive to a 45 minute drive all for an additional 10 miles.
Oh well. Kid finally has a lot of room to play and already met a neighbor who the same age. Couldn't tear them apart yesterday after they met.

 

[Uppsala9496]

Congrats on the house. Did you look into Entitle direct for title insurance/closing? They are a good bit cheaper than most and we used them with our refi without issue.

No, I hadn't heard of them.

 

[cbrsurfr]

You are just down the street from me. I'm in North Aurora, near Orchard/88 and work in Naperville as well.

 

[Uppsala9496]

The whole, you will need cash after you buy a house, so don't use all of it for a down payment is completely true.

Having all of the rooms except the kitchen, dining room and master bedroom repainted. The amount of wall anchors that were used for hanging things makes this a necessity.
My painting skills suck, and I just don't have the time to get it done. So there goes $1,900 in labor plus the cost of paint (really cheap for my area).

Carpets needed a super cleaning. The little hoover cleaner I have wasn't going to cut it. Fortunately my wife's best friend owns a carpet cleaning business. Still, that's $200.

Then there was the new fridge. $2,400 (wanted one half the price but wife and father who will be living with us talked me into the more expensive one)

New dryer. $700.

New furniture....ouch at a total of $7,000 but that is 2 mattresses, kitchen and dining table, couch, bedroom set for daughter and my father, new bed frame for wife and one or two other miscellaneous things I forget about.

Movers for all of my current furniture is $800.

New lawn mower and weed trimmer was $670 (went overboard on this for electric ones).

New TV, soundbar and mount....$1,676 (another unnecessary purchase).

And last but not least a new light fixture, light bulbs plus some garden tools at $360.

I am sure there will be more costs tonight as I need to start planting something in the garden bed so it doesn't turn into a weed box (not that kind) this summer.


And I just found out the garbage disposal is shot. Easy to install, but yet another item to purchase. I hate the damn things.

 

[boomerang]

And I just found out the garbage disposal is shot. Easy to install, but yet another item to purchase. I hate the damn things.

I came close to talking my wife out of replacing ours and instead just turning it into a simple drain. I pointed out to her that she never actually uses it, just runs it when it starts draining slow from minor dish scrapings that would go down a drain anyway. My logic did not register with her and I lost.

 

[Aikouka]

The whole, you will need cash after you buy a house, so don't use all of it for a down payment is completely true.

I'm in a sort of interesting dilemma right now in regard to that. I need a washer and dryer for the new place, and there are some nice Memorial Day sales still going on (until the beginning of next month). Well, the problem is that I haven't closed on my place yet, and the "rule" is not to do anything that will mess with your credit. One thing that I like to do is to maximize deals as much as I can, and I have two 10% off coupons at Best Buy. If I get one of their cards, I can get 10% back in rewards on the first purchase and 5% back on the second.

Although, that means opening a new line of credit and putting two mid-cost appliances on it. Regardless of whether I'd just pay them off and could do so without any issue... does that matter? The washer and dryer that I'm looking at getting are 25% off right now, but I have no idea if their pre-sale price was actually the MSRP.

And I just found out the garbage disposal is shot. Easy to install, but yet another item to purchase. I hate the damn things.

There's something interesting that I saw in my purchase contract. So, Alabama is a buyer beware state as the seller isn't legally obligated to disclose anything wrong with the house. However, the contract says something like "the seller provides all built-in appliances in working order". In other words, if I walk in and the garbage disposal doesn't work, isn't that going against the contract? It seems to be against this whole "buyer beware" mantra that I hear all the time.