Home buying time-table...?

Question

What is a good time table to go by for buying a first home. how early should we look for a home, we have 3 months left on our lease. How long does it take to get a loan? What is included in the monthly cost of a home (mortgage, taxes, insurance)? What is the difference between a fixed mortgage and an adjustable APR? Sorry for all the questions, but I dont trust too many real estate agents who are already pushing inventory houses on us rather than new homes.

Answer 1

The time is now! I started on October 4th hopping by December 4th When my lease is up i was already out. Well Today is November 20th and I still haven't found my home, the good thing is my loan is already approved, the only thing missing is the house and the long wait between negotiations and appressal.

My advise is, get pre-approved or approved FIRST, then start house hunting. The most important thing is to get approved for the best loan before the hunt, which is the easiest part.

My third application took 30-minutes over the phone with my bank and within 4-business days I was sort of pre-approved. My original loan amount was for $300,000 which got decline by the underwritter, so I had to talk to him and settle for a $260,000 loan., But a week later, it was finally approved.


Since my original loan amount was decline, I had to look for homes withing that price range in another part of the state. Where I currently live, Homes start at $300,000 and they tend to be small, and needing a lot of work.

My bank was my third and last lender, after trying with Credit Suisse which gave me 100% financing at 5.375% then change the terms to 7. 850% for 3-years fixed and 27-years variable without notifying me.

The second attend was with Quicken Loans, which was a complete waste of time. BTW, if you valued your sanity, AVOID Quicken Loans!

A fixed interest mortgage is the best to go, you don't want to go for one of those "Interest Only" you hear so much about. Thouse will lead you to a foreclosure within 3-year.

For a 100% financing loan your mortage payments will start the first day of the month 2-months later, mine is set for February 1st. 2007. The monthly payments will include Principal, Interest, Taxes and Insurance.

Answer 2

look for a home at about 2 months out unless you are looking for new construction...then start now......the longest contracts are usually not attractive to a seller, they want 30-45 day closings. It takes at least 30 days to get the loan, get pre approved not pre qualified now before you gp looking at homes you can't afford.........piti is principal, interest, taxes and insurance and most lenders fund an excrow acct so that they protect their investment by taking 1/12 of the taxes and ins. out each month.........fixed means one rate for 30 yrs or 15 yrs etc, the interest never changes...do not do an adj rate mort....the rate adjusts each time the market does(upward) which can mean hundreds of dollars in increased payments. this is dangerous, just ask the scores of people who have lost their homes because they don't have the money to pay the increases.....ps, find a realtor that you like, we are not all trying to get you to buy the first thing. I work very hard to make sure the buyers are happy and a realtor gets paid whether you buy a new home or a home already on the market. you may have the impression that they prefer one but they may be telling you the truth. you usually get more sq ftg in an older home..new costs more. ps. make sure you have enough money to pay closing costs before you start looking....3-5000 dollars over and above the down payment...good luck!

Answer 3

Three months on a lease is a sufficient amount of time. It allows you to give your landlord notice and I would allow 45 days for a loan to be processed in case there is a glitch. A fixed rate whether it's a 15 or 30 year cannot be increased. And an adustable annual percentage rate fluctuates with the economy yearly. Don't let them get you with ARM (adjustable rate mortgage). They'll say how you pay at 1% for 3 years for an example than it goes up with economy's interest rate.

Answer 4

Just how many agents have you been with? Talk with people you know who have BOUGHT a home in the past couple years. Ask them if they know a Realtor that you could trust.

Don't go with .... "Oh yeah, my cousin's a Realtor.", Don't go with "Well, we bought our house with.... uh... honey, which Realtor did we actually end up with?"

Go for ... "You HAVE to use our Realtor. He rally took care of us and explained stuff to us. One time, we thought we'd found the perfect house, but he showed us some things about it that we hadn't noticed. Saved us from really messing up! I've got his number here in my phone."

Tell that Realtor everything you need, want, can do, can't do.... time frame. 90 days is cutting it short already.... Monday, start talking to people. Your Realtor will know what mortgage company will best suit you.

Good luck in your house hunting. BTW I do almost NO work in selling you a new home. There's way more work involved in selling pre-owned homes. I strongly believe that pre-owned are usually the better deal for my client.