Closed On New Home

We got a call from the title company yesterday morning saying we could still close that afternoon, instead of waiting until today (Tuesday). So, we decided to get it over with. Being used to closings, it took us about 20 mins to sign everything and we were done (although, it took another 5-10 mins for the rep to make copies of everything and create a CD with all the docs on it).

So, now that the house is officially ours, I can talk about the financial (and other) details ...

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we first came across this house in late September. At that time, it was listed for $270,000. We found out from our agent that it was a model home that was sold to a lender who specializes in selling model homes - so there was no "real" owner. The home was first put on the market in March of this year for $345,000. It sat for a couple of months and then was taken off the market for who knows why. It went back on the market for $298,000 a couple months after that. It was about that time when the real estate market nationwide was the #1 story in the news. It dropped to $280,000 and then to $270,00, which is when we first saw it.

So, we put an offer for $240,000, thinking the Seller would counter (and hoping they would accept it - LOL). A few days later, we got a counter offer for $263,835, which our agent said she was surprised to hear. We went ahead and countered at $250,000, hoping they would just accept our offer. No matter what house we were looking for, $250,000 was our absolute top amount we were going to spend. They came back with a flat-out rejection. So, we waited.

Almost 2 weeks later, we noticed they dropped the price to $263,000, so we thought we'd try again. We again offered $250,000, and they countered at $255,596 (or some whacky figure like that). My wife and I really wanted the house for both personal and investment reasons, so we decided to break our own rule and offered $255,000. About a day later, both of us started to get cold feet and we told our agent to void our offer before the Seller had a chance to counter. And, we continued to wait.

Every day we would watch the listing to see if the price would drop again. A little over two weeks after we pulled out offer, it did. What shocked the bejeebers out of us was how far down the Seller dropped the price this time. We expected them to eventually drop the price, if they didn't receive another offer, but figured it would only be $5k-$7k. We were shocked to see they dropped it $12,000. Instead of risking losing the property by low-balling their new price, we just offered them what they listed it for: $243,000. A few days later, our agent told us they accepted our offer. Whoo-hoo! Now the agony of financing the deal set ...

It turns out we were always in communications with our loan officer - even well before we found this home. When we made our initial offer of $240,000 way back in late September, our loan officer said the home qualified for a USDA loan. I've heard of USDA loans, but that was about it - I knew nothing about them really. My loan officer explained to me that USDA has a program in which they can pay for up to 102% of the appraisal price of the home, if it qualifies. You can't get any money back, but they CAN pay for all of your closing costs and prepaids, such that you can literally come to closing with $0 in your pocket (although it's rare).

USDA loans have a lot of stipulations, though, and not everyone can qualify. Some of the stipulations are goofy, for example, my loan almost got turned down because the new home was within 0.5 miles of our current home. Another stipulation is that the home must qualify as a rural property in order to fund. There were other "gotchas" that almost killed the deal for us, but eventually everything fell into place and we got the loan.

The downside was the fact that we HAD to put down 1% for the Seller. We found out later that this was figured into the closing costs and prepaids, and was deducted from our loan. So, we never got it back as we were hoping.

More Pics and Info

Well, it appears that closing may not happen today as we thought (no surprise there!). The title company was trading barbs with the lender over some figures late Friday, which meant they would have to send the docs to the Seller this am to sign. It's still possible we could close this afternoon, but it's looking more like tomorrow. The Seller is on the east coast, so things get communicated a little slower (of course, it doesn't help they are a lender, too).

We did go to the house yesterday with our agent to do a final walk-through. I guess this is mandatory now as I don't recall having to do this with our investment properties. The builder is still building in the community and their new model home is located right next to this home. While we were there, the builder's rep came over and introduced herself. In talking with her, we found out that this house has over $90,000 in upgrades. We thought it was a lot, but never imagined it was that much!

I took a lot of pictures of the place, which I'll post here:

Front elevation		The waterfall and landscaping in front yard.
Unobstructed View of community park, pool, volleyball court, basketball court, and hike/bike trails.		Cement bench and landscaping in front yard.
Another view of front yard.		Front porch and walkway.
Front/Side elevation		More landscaping in front yard.
Possibly a dead oak tree in the front yard.		Some landscaping in the back yard.
Back porch. The back porch is stained concrete. Note the hanging "curtains" I spoke of in another post.		Landscaping and cement bench in back yard.
And another photo of rear porch.		Another photo of the rear porch.
Another photo of backyard with even more landscaping.		Rear elevation
Back porch and French doors off of master bedroon.		Close-up of rear stained concrete porch
Dining Room		Living Room
Utility Room		Wrought iron staircase
Intercom/Radio Station		Family Room + Fireplace
Bedroom #1		View of Park/Pool from Bedroom #1
Bedroom #1		Full secondary bathroom #1.
Tub in secondary bathroom #1.		Tub in secondary bathroom #1.
Entry with plant shelf from 2nd floor.		Bedroom #2 (aka, the "pink" room).
Bedroom #3		Dressing area for Bedroom #3. Bedrooms 2 and 3 share a Jack-n-Jill bathroom.
Jack-n-Jill bath tub.		Bedroom #2 again.
Master bedroom		Master bedroom
Master bedroom, showing French doors leading to back patio.		Master bath
Master bath		Master bath
Master closet		Master bath
Kitchen		Media Room
Media Room		Media Room (looking out towards Game Room).
Game Room		Game Room