So I figured this is one of the best places to seek out advice on this topic.
FH and I are very interested in buying a house this year (a fixer-upper) that way we could have enough time to purchase the house and work on the house for a while and have it ready for Sept of 2012.
My question pertains to the mortgage / closing process.
For those girls who have either recently bought a house or are in the process... did you put down 20% and if you did about how much would you estimate your closing costs ran?
We aren't thinking about putting any less than 20% because we do not want to pay PMI I am just trying to get a ballpark estimate of how much we would have to have for closing costs as well.
For ex: if the house cost $400,000 and we are putting down $80,000 - how much would the closing costs be? And does anyone know if you can put the closings costs back into your mortgage as a sellers concession? I have read that it can no longer be done but didn't know if that was 100% accurate.
TIA!!!!!
gf1025
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Re: Buying a house / Closing Costs - LONG sorry!!
Hi! I purchased a home a year ago. The closing cost was around $18K. I was quoted anywhere from 14 to 22K. The closing cost is directly related to the price of the property, the property taxes in the area and other fees, the higher the price, the higher your closing cost. Some of the fees, however, are tax deductible for instance, points. I paid points as well so my costs was higher because of that, but it also meant a lower interest rate. The closing cost is not dependent upon the size of your down payment but rather, the size of the loan.
I was going to have a larger down payment but it wasn't 20%. The loan officer let me know that the PMI would be the same whether I put down 15% or 5%. So I opted to leave more $$ in the bank for remodeling and unforeseeable costs(when you own a house, you have them all at the worst times ) Best of luck and be patient, closing on a house can take really long. Mine took a ridiculous amount of time because the bank was really slow and the owners had a paperwork issue...It took a whopping 6 months from the time I put my offer to the closing day!
adelz
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Re: Buying a house / Closing Costs - LONG sorry!!
I think it's between 3-5% of your final loan amount. When we bought our apartment, it came to just about 2-3%.
Tomsbride
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Re: Buying a house / Closing Costs - LONG sorry!!
Sending you FM
JustJerk
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Re: Buying a house / Closing Costs - LONG sorry!!
It's around 3%. Just be careful of the lender fees.
thefloreswedding
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Re: Buying a house / Closing Costs - LONG sorry!!
Hi Amanda!! Iwork at a mortgage company & I am a licensed mortgage consultant...you are right putting 20% down helps avoid PMI but if you are looking to buy a fixer upper you might also want to look at a 203k loan where the improvements are financed into the mortgage and you only need 3.5% for downpymt...the PMI usually goes away after 5 years or when you hit 78% of the loan to value...did you find a house yet? Are you preapproved? I can run some numbers for you to see what I can do to help u..,it doesnt hurt to look at ur options to see whats better for u...fm me if ur intrsd! Id be happy to help u
thefloreswedding
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Re: Buying a house / Closing Costs - LONG sorry!!
Oh yeah..sellers concession is used to pay for your closing costs This is when the seller agrees to net less money to pay for some of your closing costs ( this does not include the money u need for dp)
Jenn7982
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Re: Buying a house / Closing Costs - LONG sorry!!
I'm in the process right now, we are only putting 3.5 % down with an FHA loan. Our closing costs estimate is at about 15,000, but they said it probably won't be that much. We are using the sellers concession for the closing costs. we are opting to keep more money in the bank because of the wedding etc. So it still exists. lmk if you have any specific questions
JustJerk
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Re: Buying a house / Closing Costs - LONG sorry!!
Remember with FHA loans, you have to pay UFMIP which I think is 1.75% of the loan on top of your closing cost.
My FH is a mortagage Consultant for Wells Fargo. If you don't already have someone and need help let me know. I can give you his information.
thefloreswedding
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Re: Buying a house / Closing Costs - LONG sorry!!
Posted by JustJerk
Remember with FHA loans, you have to pay UFMIP which I think is 1.75% of the loan on top of your closing cost.
UFMIP and MIP are tax deductible.
Currently the upfront MIP is financed into the loan it is 1% (used to be 1.75%) and that is not tax deductible but the monthly MI can be tax deductible....the % for the MI is based off of the loan to value ratio either .85% if you are less than 95% LTV (putting more than 5% down payment) OR .9% if you are over 95% LTV. Just an FYI ladies, Due to the laws there has been a notice that this is set to change in April.....
michellelovesjohn
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Re: Buying a house / Closing Costs - LONG sorry!!
we paid about 3% of our final purchase price
ETA: with about 11% down
cait625
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Re: Buying a house / Closing Costs - LONG sorry!!
You can still have a seller's concession (i'm a real estate agent and doing this right now buying my first house) The seller has to agree to it, which usually isn't a problem if you estimate for the closing costs in your offer.
i.e. you want to offer 400,000 with seller's concession of 15,000. The seller really would be accepting an offer of 385,000.
Also closing costs are usually 3%. If you are working with a mortgage broker when they write you a pre-approval letter they can give you a better estimate based on the purchase price.
HTH
lazyc1981
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Re: Buying a house / Closing Costs - LONG sorry!!
our closing costs were 16000
SeptemberBride2012
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Re: Buying a house / Closing Costs - LONG sorry!!
thank you all so much for your responses, i really appreciate it!!!
we went into another house tonight with FH parents and needless to say we are still on the hunt
i cannot believe how expensive homes are and for what you get when i watch HGTV and these couples are buying mansions for $250,000 and I can't even get a garage for that!
soontobeDK
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Re: Buying a house / Closing Costs - LONG sorry!!
Posted by SeptemberBride2012
thank you all so much for your responses, i really appreciate it!!!
we went into another house tonight with FH parents and needless to say we are still on the hunt
i cannot believe how expensive homes are and for what you get when i watch HGTV and these couples are buying mansions for $250,000 and I can't even get a garage for that!
It takes lots of patience! FH and I probably went to over 50 houses and took us almost a year before we settled and found 'our' home.
I have OCD so image me walking into a home that is not organized, dirty or smelly! We went to see a house owned by an elderly lady with 6 cats!!! I wasn't able to walk past the front door from the horrible smell. Another house we went to see had the husbands dirty underwear on the kitchen floor!!!
JUST KEEP POSITIVE.
Tomsbride
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Re: Buying a house / Closing Costs - LONG sorry!!
My friends looked at over 100 houses. I am prob at 20.
thefloreswedding
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Re: Buying a house / Closing Costs - LONG sorry!!
YES! keep positive, and DONT rush! take your time...the perfect house will be around! Also....there is a special program called an FHA 203K Purchase where you can buy a home that might need work/repairs done and you can finance the repairs into your loan...this program came out when alot of foreclosures started coming out....it gave people like us the opportunity to buy low priced homes and do repairs to it without actually going into our checking account....this is done with a contractor of your choice and you are protected because an inspector makes sure that all of the repairs are within compliance....so for ex:you can buy a $200k home and put $35k repairs in it (style like YOU want it) and get a mortgage for $235k
there is alot out there that people dont know about...programs and assistance (like grants etc) that you can also qualify for....
sorry for rambling....LOL FM me for more info....good luck!
KristyANDMatt224
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Re: Buying a house / Closing Costs - LONG sorry!!
FH and i out in a bid that just got accepted today for a home! our closing costs are estimated between $10-13,000. the option was given to us to roll the closing costs into the mortgage, but they are tax deductable so we will just pay that. we are taking an FHA which requires 3.5 % down. I think we will put 10% down and closing, so we are looking at nearly $40,000 in all at closing. good luck and dont settle! the perfect home is out there
