Home Sale Question

[PrincessFiona]

We have very little knowledge in this area. How do you guys sell a home/buy another. I know this is probably common knowledge, but we're talking about possibly selling our house this Spring and moving to a diff. neighborhood. DH is all freaked out though that we need to save a bunch of money for a down payment, realtors fees, etc... first. I thought that since we'd be using the same bank to do the financing that they might be able to...errrr...roll over our mortgage and just charge us new closing costs? Am I way out there wearing a tin foil hat? Also, I thought that anything that we got back from the sale of the house would pay for realtors fees and could go back towards the down payment?


This is our fourth year of living in this house. We don't have much equity at all...not even enough to pay off a realtor...but the homes in the area have gone up in price enough that we would probably get enough based on that.


Can any of you veterans out there educate me?

kris

[mommax3]

Kris,

The best thing for you to do is talk with a realtor (the one you used when you moved, if you liked them) and have them do a comparative market analysis, which will tell you what homes in your area similar to yours in size, age, etc. have sold for in the past 6 months to a year. You don't have to sign a contract with anyone for them to provide you with that.....in fact, you may want to ask 2 or 3 realtors to provide you with one. You should be able to get a pretty good idea of what your house will sell for from that process.

After you have a good idea of what you might make on your house, you will know what kind of down-payment you will have, and then you can start shopping around for mortgages. Your realtor can help you with this, or you can do it on your own. You should have an idea of what monthly payment you can afford, including taxes and insurance if your down payment isn't very large.

We are planning on listing our house in February, so as I get further along in the process, I will be available for more questions. This is the third house we have sold, but there is still lots of stuff I have forgotten or never knew in the first place.

That's great that Thomas is on board with you guys moving! Congrats!

Sally

I think Sally's suggestion is a good one and a real estate agent should be able to help you figure most of that out. However, I also think it's a good idea to find out as much as you can yourself since some realtors might use the opportunity to screw you. But that's just the warm, fuzzy kind of gal that I am.

Here are some links that you might find of interest:

Picking an agent:
http://www.kiplinger.com/basics/spending/home/agent.htm

Buying a house:
http://yahoo.smartmoney.com/home/buying ... ory=primer

Selling your house:
http://yahoo.smartmoney.com/home/sellin ... =checklist
http://www.kiplinger.com/basics/archive ... lling.html

For Sale By Ower:
http://yahoo.smartmoney.com/home/sellin ... story=solo

http://www.kiplinger.com/basics/archive ... izzbo.html

What they said!!

Ok, since we just sold and bought within the last six months, here is what we did.
We hated our realtor when we bought in KC, so we talked to anyone that would listen to us and got a GREAT referral, as our listing agent. I interviewed several and got a large window of what our house was worth (think $10-25K difference!). Anyway, getting a market analysis is easy, I even got one online for free through realtor.com, I think.... anyhow, I am the one who had all the paperwork in line for the mortgage, but we knew that we would be using Bank of America's Physician loan. If there is a BoA in your area, I think, it would be worth your time to check them out for mortgages. No down payment, no private mortgage insurance(PMI) saves you a bunch in the monthly payment and up front.
I am sure that there are other banks with similar offers for "professionals", I am just more familiar with BoA since we have used them now twice!

Another website that is fun to see what you can get and figure the payment and all that good stuff is
http://www.mortgage101.com they have some really good calculators for crunching numbers, they also do a pretty good job of explaining things there too.

I just want to add, that I know nothing about buying or selling a house but might have to in the future. This is really helpful. Thanks!

[BonBon]

and I want to add that I just went through this not 6 months ago and I have not a stinkin' clue. My job was to get the house ready. That's all I know. And Nellie had to help me with that. (Thanks Nellie!! )

OH Wait!!! I do have some advice - which I already told you but will repeat for the benefit of everyone else. Before you make any upgrades to your home, contact a realtor first to schedule a walk-through. DH and I saved THOUSANDS by doing this. We also put an asking price 15K higher than what the realtor recommended and got the full asking price.

Matt-
I see from your sig that your DW is military, so maybe it's different, but a quick question.. how far through training does the physician need to be to qulaify for that BoA Physician loan? In all liklihood we'll be selling our current house (standard regular people mortgage) and buying next spring/summer when my DH begins residency. Do you need to be through residency to qualify? Those benefits sound awesome!

We got our first BoA loan(4yrs ago) straight out of med school! The approval was based on the work contract through the coming year(intern year). It is as easy as knowing that they offer it, and then talking with someone to get the paper-ball rolling!! Good luck, hope this helps!

[Cumberland]

We got the same loan as Matt but through SunTrust -before DH started residency but after the match. They used his school history as a work history, and he had to show some paperwork from his residency program. I contacted BOA at the time, but went with ST bc they were local.

[DCJenn]

We have friends who used the BOA physician's loan and they have been very pleased.

We have an incredibly creative loan through Wells Fargo that basically took a second mortgage to pay for the PMI (that's the mortgage insurance you have to pay if you don't have 20% cash to put down) and we financed it as a 5/1 ARM (Adjustible Rate Mortgage) at a VERY low interest rate because we know that we're not going to live here forever. So, we pay ONLY the interest on the primary mortgage and the payment on the equity loan is relatively nominal. I do pay a wee bit extra every month toward the premium but that's just me.

There are lots and lots of creative ways to finance home purchasing, BUT a critical piece is to have pristine credit.

Jenn