Hi Roni, Congratulations!! My hubby and I have had our house for almost a year... hopefully you have a mortgage person you can trust to give you the bottom line.. many of the fees we incured were put into our mortgage so we didn't have to pay for them in 'cash'.. I'm talking maybe $4000 worth.. something like that. We have an FHA loan and the prinicpal, taxes (in escrow) and the mortgage insurance are all in one payment. The biggest thing with FHA is the inspection process.. they are brutal and very picky on things. Our closing was held up because FHA demanded that our upper sliding door off the kitchen be BOLTED shut since there was a 5 foot drop (we have to build the deck on) and it was 'unsafe" even though we do not have kids.. so, they had to bolt it shut and take a POLAROID of it and then we could finish our closing! .. we just unbolted it when we got back to the house that afternoon!) We were surprised by how many things we HAD to buy (well, I guess we could have waited..) An extra sofa and entertainment center for the second living room, the appliances (we bought a brand new home, so it only came with a dishwasher... but being the good shopper that I am, I went to Lowe's and got a washer, dryer, freezer, stove and refrigerator for $1600 combined!) We also finished an entire room from drywall, to paint, to floors and ceiling to make a media room before we moved in... just make sure you have enough cash to fill in the spots! I hate that we get water and garbage bills.. and we had to buy a water softener! Things you don't really think about... maybe your place has all that... We still have all outside landscaping, a patio, a deck, a closet room and our garage to finish up... SIGH. Shelly
Hi Shelly ~ Do you happen to be in GA. The reason I ask, I'm going to be finishing an entertain room myself and was wondering about cost. Did you do it yourself, was it hard?
Shelly, My experience to the inspection process was similar. Not because I had gone FHA but because the "community" I moved in to was really strict. I assumed some of the violations, then underestimated the time they needed the repairs done by and the cost...wow was that a costly mistake. Congrats on your upcoming 1 year anniversary! The kinks are probably all shaken out by now. How's that media room, cool name for a room - I like it! Roni, Shelly has some great examples of the kinds of things you encounter post closing (like garbage/water softener/dryer etc). As she said: "just make sure you have enough cash to fill in the spots!" As she did, I also moved as many of the expenses and fees into the mortgage payment, keeping as cash in your pocket without increasing your monthly burden. Talk these things out with your mortgage loan officer. -Dave
Please REad ! more info Well, everytime I read a helpful response, I remember something that I forgot to mention. You guys are raising very important points and I appreciate them. By the way, I responded to you all also on the thread below. Please read that, ok so I dont have to retype it here. Incentive items are the washer and dryer, and refrigerator( which I am upgrading for a few extra bucks). These are thrown in. As for some options, like the carpeting (all 7 rooms, hallways and stairs), appliances like garbage disposal, vinyl flooring for the kitchen and baths, and powder room, foyer hardwood, fireplace, ceiling fans wiring, and attic, these were included in the good faith estimate. She didnot mention stove. But I got the microwave. The paper says stove is an included item, but she didnot say it. Weird??Anyway, I ran up a $11,000 options total and plan to downsize that a little. These are included in the sell and mortgage rate. I think. I am do to put down a hefty downpayment to get options. May I should have said that before , if it makes a difference. Thanks again. roni
For Kim Hi Kim, I live in Northern Illinois where the housing is stupidly affordable (we have a brand new, 3 bedroom, exposed, tri-level with 2 car garage on 1/3 acre and we got it for $89,000) BUT...the schools SUCK. But, that's ok because we don't have kids and aren't having any ever... hence the name 'media room'. 'family room' doesn't bode well with us! Like I said in the original post.. we bought our home brand new...a tri level with the 'media room' an exposed level into the back yard. it was important that we do the room BEFORE moving in since it gave us a HUGE space. It was two rooms with studded in walls.. we made one room a workout/storage area and the other our media room. We were lucky that we had cashed out my husbands 401K from a previous job so we had $22,000 in cash for the down payment and everything.. so, we had the money to do the room. (if we hadn't had the money, we wouldn't have the house!) Anyway, we took the room from concrete and studs and transformed it to drywall, a drop ceiling and porcelain tile in less than 2 weeks because we HAD to. So, my advice is to enlist help from those you know that have experience in drywalling (it isn't easy), painting, tile or floor work, ceiling work and you may need to hire an electric guru. We are lucky because my husband has an electronic engineering degree, which allowed us to run our own electric work, my stepdad helped with getting the drywall screwed in, his uncle does drywall for a living, his cousin is good at painting, his other cousin had floor tile experience, and his brother does ceiling tile for a living! I got my porcelain tile at a discount place and they were willing to deal. I choose a tile I liked, I had to do a 300 square foot floor and I walked in and said "I have an $800 budget.. if you can get me that tile and everything I need for that amount, you have a sale" I wrote a check for $797.12! My husband was amazed! The biggest expense in a floor is the installation. They quoted us $1000 just to put the floor in... that's a pretty big motivator to learn to do it yourself! It is a big job.. but if you can put the sweat and money into it, it's worth it...on the other hand, if you aren't good at that kind of thing, it's worth it to hire someone. Like my hubby says "there are certain things you pay people to do..." (in our case, we think the $15 we spend every 6 weeks to get out 75 pound Great Dane bathed is worth every penny because we don't have to do it ourselves!) We are rewarded with the one room we use the most... we have surround sound, a big screen tv, DVD player, and bar in that room and we love it. This summer we will be putting in the patio that will come off the sliding door into the backyard.
