House Sold

[iowaboy]

Well after about 6 months on the market, we accepted an offer to sell our old house in Waterloo last week. Sold it for about 15 K less than what we had listed it for. I was tempted to hold out and wait until spring, but our real estate agent showed me a list of homes for sale that we're competing with and the price we got was actually pretty good in comparison to what prices other people have their homes listed for. Buyers will increase when spring hits, but so will inventory.

Definetly more sellers than buyer and it's a buyers market in this area. I was told by several good advisors to take care of a buyer if you have one. We met with 3 real estate agents when deciding to list it for sale and 2 of the 3 said we should list it exactly where we ended up selling it.

It's a little painful. We got 20 K more than we bought it for, but probably stuck 40K into it over the 11 years we owned the place. If you figure the loss and property taxes, it cost me about $400 per month to live there, which still would have been less than renting a comparable home. Renting isn't always a bad gig....

Our real estate agent was very good in this transaction and I doubt we would have gotten a deal done with out her. We were really far apart on price(35K) when this process started. She kept working on the buyers(and us) and finally brokered a deal. I'm sure on my own, I would have gotten frustrated with the buyers fairly quickly and told them to take a hike.

I'm not crying in my beer too much. It's all relative. I got my new place bought relatively reasonable too and was able to lock in a 30 year note at 4% interest. I can get the bridge loan paid off now since we sold and can knock 15 years off the 30 year note with the balance of this sale.

Live and learn. I've made a lot of good investments. You can't bat perfect all the time.:wink0st:

1. You never mentioned tax advantages you had during that time.

2. You need to factor in the stability factor of owning a home.

3. IF your children went to WEST HIGH SCHOOL they got a great education.

4. NOW you are free as other than getting a good education (WEST) you are away from the "armpit" of Iowa.

 

[besserheimerphat]

I have very good results with the local Credit Union. Cheaper rate, prompt response, and no hassles. They all sell these loans off anyway, so why not just shop around and find the best rate and best people? Wells Fargo is a huge bank that is run fairly well from a financial standpoint, but they are big and bigger isn't always better.

I always thought that maybe it was just a Marshalltown thing, as that often seems to be the case, but maybe it is systemic.

 

[Bobber]

1. You never mentioned tax advantages you had during that time.

2. You need to factor in the stability factor of owning a home.

3. IF your children went to WEST HIGH SCHOOL they got a great education.

4. NOW you are free as other than getting a good education (WEST) you are away from the "armpit" of Iowa.

Good point on the tax advantage. That took the pain out of it a little bit, but I had my house paid off in about 5 years, so that went away pretty quick.

The stability of owning? I've always owned, but that's a curious statement.

West isn't what it used to be and recent changes were one of the primary reasons we chose to move now. I had neighbors who work in the Waterloo School system at multiple levels and they couldn't fault my logic(as a matter of fact several told me we made a good decision).

P.S. The Arm Pit of Iowa comment is not fair or accurate. By and large our experiences in Waterloo were very positive and that town has a lot of good things happening right now. I've been in some small towns in Iowa that are in a lot worse shape.

 

[temperflare]

Yeah, its BS, I got jacked by that rule.

Removal of MIP From FHA Loans



The minimum amount of MIP payments doesn't apply for a 15 year FHA loan.

Also, the LTV is affected if your property value goes down. This jacked a lot of people starting in 2008 when property values began to take a nose dive. We dealt with a lot of ****** off homeowners calling in to have their MIP canceled, only to find out that they were going to be continuing to pay it indefinitely because their property values declined so much and took the LTV back way up over 80%.

That great info! Thanks for posting it as I'm sure others will get something out of it as well.

 

[trueclone2]

I think his point was more along the lines that his post of "hey, I shoveled my driveway" was just about as random as the original post of "hey, I sold my house".

I'm continually amazed at the information that people share with total strangers on the internet.

I totally agree with this. Save this stuff for the stupid facebook site. The random postings of weird things like I sold my house or I am thinking of going for a walk with my dog is why I don't go onto facebook for more than about once a month. Who cares?! or Is your life so boring you have to share trivial things with the rest of the world? If so go do it on facebook and save us on Cyclone Fanatic for actual news worthy stuff.

In other words no one really cares that you sold your house or your dog actually pooped today.

 

[temperflare]

You have twice as many transactions for you and the bank that way. Why make it that complicated? I simply make an extra principal payment when I make my monthly payment.

I've always paid things off early when I had the exta money. I remember one year paying $10,000 down early on in my 30 year note. I wiped off almost 15 years of payments and it saved me nearly $100,000 in interest payments. I was amazed when I calculated it.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from an old acccountant who told me to not get too wrapped up in the "tax deduction" for mortage interest. He told me yeah you reduce your interest expense with the deduction, but it's still an expense that's going out and costing you.

I don't see it as being complicated at all. The bank has its escrow pay method set up to only take one amount per month. When it becomes something consumers demand then I'm sure we'll see this pay method offered. These 3rd parties are capable of doing it, so other than the desire to make insane profits off of the interest, I don't see any reason why the large banks would avoid it. An extra automated transaction per month is more than likely minuscule in cost. But, as I said, I'm sure its the profit motive from the interest that prevents banks from making a two week payment option available.

 

[Bobber]

I totally agree with this. Save this stuff for the stupid facebook site. The random postings of weird things like I sold my house or I am thinking of going for a walk with my dog is why I don't go onto facebook for more than about once a month. Who cares?! or Is your life so boring you have to share trivial things with the rest of the world? If so go do it on facebook and save us on Cyclone Fanatic for actual news worthy stuff.

In other words no one really cares that you sold your house or your dog actually pooped today.

Yawn....Moving on....

 

[temperflare]

I totally agree with this. Save this stuff for the stupid facebook site. The random postings of weird things like I sold my house or I am thinking of going for a walk with my dog is why I don't go onto facebook for more than about once a month. Who cares?! or Is your life so boring you have to share trivial things with the rest of the world? If so go do it on facebook and save us on Cyclone Fanatic for actual news worthy stuff.

In other words no one really cares that you sold your house or your dog actually pooped today.

It's not important to you so therefore it shouldn't be posted here? That's a fairly selfish viewpoint. I'm not attacking you, I'm just making a point because if you read through the thread there is a lot of good info in it. We may have some fellow CF's that are looking to sell/buy a home that could benefit from the info shared in this thread.

On top of that, this is the "Off Topic" thread. Think about that.

 

[Bobber]

I don't see it as being complicated at all. The bank has its escrow pay method set up to only take one amount per month. When it becomes something consumers demand then I'm sure we'll see this pay method offered. These 3rd parties are capable of doing it, so other than the desire to make insane profits off of the interest, I don't see any reason why the large banks would avoid it. An extra automated transaction per month is more than likely minuscule in cost. But, as I said, I'm sure its the profit motive from the interest that prevents banks from making a two week payment option available.

Yeah but you can do the same thing the way I do it with out writing a check twice a month.