All Forum Posts by: Lynn Z

That's funny. We bought a house from a daughter of a 90 year old man that built the house in 1940 and died in it the previous year. It took 4 people non stop to get that place cleaned out. The daughter didn't want anything her father left behind. Also there were lots of cats and insdie cat damage and we had to clean and coat the tile with outdoor porch enamel to cut the smell. You just couldn't get to the bottom of it. I can laugh now but it was a mess.
It's a lovely Nantucket bungalow now and the envy of the neighborhood.

We had to sell this summer and FSBO'd our houses. Sold one in 8 days and one in 14 days through open houses. Just 2 open houses each 2-5 on Sunday. A tube with color flyers are fairly easy. Closing costs eat up so much of your profit even when you're selling yourself. You could always state "broker protected" and pay 3% to agents bringing you a buyer. Most are happy to do this if they have someone but I found zero response or interest at 3% because they'd rather do one transaction at 6% than mess with FSBO's at 3%. Go figure.

if you can only make $6000 can't you FSBO the house?

You can rent a nice 2/1 house in an ok neighborhood for $750 or a 2/1 apartment in a very nice neighborhood. One bedroms range from $475-$550; I'm in South Carolina.
The problem we're having is there are no prospective tenants renting right now-just lookers.

I had a $50,000 loan I was applying for with a major lender and was told by the loan officer that it was marginal at this level. They did make the loan but wouldn't have if the amount had been $45000 for example.

in my area DOM calculations have changed dramatically in the past month. Check your Sunday paper for transfers and check those out. Realtors relist properties to "refresh" them and don't always add those DOM up.

if you buy property and do the work yourself you risk losing $$$ because you don't have the speed you need to turn the house. I know a perfectly lovely house that threw up a "Rent to Buy" sign because the house won't sell. The reason it won't sell is that the kitchen and bathroom remodeling looks amateurish, ie not professional If you get enough money to sub out the work you can move the house along and control it's marketability much better. Insurance companies are nosey about what licensed contractor worked on the property before they up the insured value of a remodeled house.

I think living in a house and remodeling it slowly makes more sense because you can afford to hold the house, stage it and if you only make a marginal profit at least it's tax free after two years.

In my area, realtors are hugging prospective buyers because they are so rare. Things are a little tough right now.

so if you're using a conservative lender they may be more comfortable with the old vs the new and you're locked into 14 days, correct? I figured if Countrywide can hit me 2x in 30 days on one loan that they did that with most of their shoppers.

Thank you for the useful information about the new scoring alternative.

When talking with mortgage folks on the telephone you don't need to give them your social to have them hit your credit. They do it if you just inquire about a rate. Ask that question "You're not going to check my credit are you"?

I used a mortgage broker in Florida who (it turned out) only had two vendors...so he shopped my investment loan and put multiple inquiries on all three credit bureaus without my knowledge. Wrote letters to everyone complaining. Took forever to get those inquiries off.

If Countrywide takes your application today they are likely to do a credit check to see what rate to quote. At the end of the 30 day period there is another check to see that nothing has changed. I think that safe harbor is more like 14 days for cars and mortgages -- not 45.

Never let anyone shop your loan. Do the calling yourself.

Rents have definitely gone up here in mid South Carolina. We rented several houses for $1500 which were only bringing $975 for the past 4 years. Fall is still slow and more tenants looking around than making a move to another apartment. Have a cottage for rent with everything and reasonably priced at $750 and can't get a call. Go figure.

that's horrible. Alot of the problem of misstating income etc. seems to have appeared when lenders started taking applications by phone instead of in person. When the closing comes around and the real loan application that they filled out appears you have to be focusing in to notice the income is inflated and different than what you gave over the phone. what's the homeowner to do....say "there's an error in the application"? After all, they read out the correct information on the phone.
and never saw a final copy until closing.

another pet peeve of mine is lender's ordering appraisals of investment property and not specifying that a licensed appraiser must do the investment property appraisal. you disturb up your tenants, usually with little notice, and then find out the "supervising appraiser" must come through again because the first appraiser was an apprasier "in training". That's happened to me three times over the past six years. You almost have to question their credentials before you let them in the door--all this going on when you're hoping for a decent appraisal on the house you're selling.