For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

[mgoblue]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

Escrow for me as well. It's nice to know that I don't owe massive amounts of money three times a year.

Same here, that's how our new mortgage is set up. They do this because a majority of people are incapable of planning for those big payments once a year. Not ripping on people, it's just not always easy to set money aside yourself (because of life) so the escrow keeps us from hurting ourselves (and assures the lender that everything will get paid).


Long but good holiday weekend here. The front lawn took 2 passes with a weed whacker before I went and found a nice Toro self-propelled gas mower on craigslist lol. Still had to do 4 passes on that (way too much grass would bind the mower).

Backyard is bigger, but wasn't as bad. I was able to get away with 2 passes with the mower going super slow and will have to go over it again to bag more of the grass.

Also had appliances delivered, but the washer won't open all the way so have to have repair guy come out. Frustrating, but it happens. The fridge we got (side by side with ice machine and all that jazz) is awesome.

Also got a grill (surprise housewarming gift from my parents)...$200 Charbroil on sale for 169. Needed their van to get it home and they offered to pay.

Pool cleaner (Baracuda G2) is set up now and is awesome at cleaning.

Had locks re-keyed so we know who has keys now.

It's amazing how much we were able to get done. The lawns were annoying but I feel awesome in being able to get them finished. Still have to trim and do edges, but at least now the place doesn't look abandoned lol

Fun "Welcome to being a homeowner" weekend lol

[23]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

man you're in AZ right?

How do you take care of the lawn?

I'm having issues since its been kinda hot, the sun scorches the grass and it wont stay green whether I water it every night or not

I'd rather have a desert landscape look than all of this grass and flowers around the house...

[mgoblue]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

man you're in AZ right?

How do you take care of the lawn?

I'm having issues since its been kinda hot, the sun scorches the grass and it wont stay green whether I water it every night or not

I'd rather have a desert landscape look than all of this grass and flowers around the house...

I'm still learning. It was awesomely green because it was so long and getting watered (sprinklers), but once I cut it there was more brown. I think this was because it was too long and some of the grass lower doesn't get any sun. I'm hoping that with watering and whatnot it'll come back. I won't be at the house much the next 2 weeks (on vacation next week) so just hoping.

I also think we may have to seed for winter grass too. I've never had AZ grass before, so going to be an adventure.

I wonder if you need different grass or something though...if you water it then it should be green eventually (and most lawns I see tend to be green if taken care of). Sounds like you take care of it so I'm at a loss. I'll let you know as I learn more about AZ lawns...in Michigan it was simple, you didn't have to do much but mow your lawn.

[23]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

I may need different grass, which my agent came by to visit Saturday and mentioned.."what kind of grass it" which made me think, she's right. It was nice and green... before we bought the place, but shortly after it just stayed hot and slowly the grass started to brown and yellow in spots.

We sprayed some miracle grow on all of it last night.. . want to see if that helps. I wouldnt mind doing a landscaping DIY myself.. just need tools and funds to do it

[Trevytrev11]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

Hey guys, do most of you escrow your taxes and insurance or pay a lump sum bill at the end of the year? I know it nets out to be the same, but I'd like to see what people's preferences are.


Sent from my 4S using Tapatalk

Looks like I am the minority, but I hate escrow.

I would rather make the additional payment to myself every month and put it in some interest generating account (even though rates are next to nothing right now).

For those that are not disciplined enough to do this and will end up spending the money, I totally get it, but that is not me. I self escrow my property taxes, home owners insurance, HOA dues, alarm (pay annually) as well as car insurance (pay twice a year).

I have a few gripes with escrow accounts.
1) They require a cushion. At any given time, our mortgage company was holding $1,000 or more of money as a cushion. This was money of mine that that they kept just in case there was an increase in something.
2) We pay no state income tax in Texas and therefore have pretty high property taxes. Each year they re-evaluate the value of your home. For four straight years the value of our home jumped around about $20K a year, which at over a 3% tax was a $600 swing.

So not only do they have to increase your payment to make up for the difference, they also need to increase the cushion, so you get hit almost twice. The next year they come down and they do the exact opposite. Our monthly payment, because of this, was jumping around a few hundred dollars from year to year, which to me was just ridiculous.

I would rather have my own account, pay my own bills and have control over my own cushion.

[23]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

I think its a bit much to say people aren't disciplined when they are in actuality home owners... it takes a ton of discipline to get to the point to own a home, especially now, because they go over you with a razor blade before sending your loan through.

Just because people choose escrow doesn't mean they can't save money (which i doubt is true), it is much more convenient though. My 401k probably weilds me more savings than some account a bank throws out there at the moment...

This is the great part about it.. we all have choices, and owning brings freedom to do things like that in a variety of situations. Sure escrow takes the cushion, because some peoples property taxes do rise, even if the value of the home drops. IMO its no different than people saying "save some money because something will end up happening"

[Trevytrev11]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

I think its a bit much to say people aren't disciplined when they are in actuality home owners... it takes a ton of discipline to get to the point to own a home, especially now, because they go over you with a razor blade before sending your loan through.

Just because people choose escrow doesn't mean they can't save money (which i doubt is true), it is much more convenient though. My 401k probably weilds me more savings than some account a bank throws out there at the moment...

This is the great part about it.. we all have choices, and owning brings freedom to do things like that in a variety of situations. Sure escrow takes the cushion, because some peoples property taxes do rise, even if the value of the home drops. IMO its no different than people saying "save some money because something will end up happening"

I didn't mean it as a shot at anyone or even as a negative. I just know a lot of people of all types and income levels who take different approaches, but I think a lot of people don't understand how to manage the process themselves or more commonly don't trust themselves not to spend the money.

It's easy to fall in the trap of "well, I'll just pay $100 less this month and make it up next months so I can do this or buy this" and then by the time the end of the year comes around, they are scrambling to come up with enough money to pay their taxes on time and avoid a penalty. This is what I meant when I was talking of discipline. I know a lot of people who can pay what is due now, but struggle with what is due at the end of the year.

I think it is safe to say that if monthly payments were thrown out the door for things like cars, houses, insurance, etc in exchange for annual payments (with a 12 month notice to give people a head start to prepare) a lot of people would find themselves in trouble at the end of the year when all of a sudden they owed tens of thousands of dollars in payments...this is what I mean by discipline. You would have a group of ready to write the check with the money in the bank and others panicking because they blew in on a new TV or something.

If my wife handled all the bills, we would have to escrow with out a doubt.

The escrow is definitely convenient, but it comes at a cost of interest to the home owner as the money as well as the cushion that would be sitting in their bank account is sitting in mortgage companies account instead.

[23]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

I totally understand your point, I just didn't agree that this was the case for everyone.

More than anything myself im so glad to be a homeowner now, it changes your mentality instantly.

Kinda scary at first but once you figure out whats going on, you just do what you do. I installed a water line to my fridge finally as of yesterday...all of those tools came in handy

Hated to put a hole in those nice wood cabinets but it was a must... plus you dont see it anyway

[mgoblue]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

I totally understand your point, I just didn't agree that this was the case for everyone.

More than anything myself im so glad to be a homeowner now, it changes your mentality instantly.

Kinda scary at first but once you figure out whats going on, you just do what you do. I installed a water line to my fridge finally as of yesterday...all of those tools came in handy

Hated to put a hole in those nice wood cabinets but it was a must... plus you dont see it anyway

It's my first new fridge with water/ice and it's awesome. Will use it so much once we move in.

Thankfully we had a water pipe in the wall meant for the fridge, so it was easy for the installers to set it up for me. I'm guessing you had to tap into an existing line and split?

[23]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

It's my first new fridge with water/ice and it's awesome. Will use it so much once we move in.

Thankfully we had a water pipe in the wall meant for the fridge, so it was easy for the installers to set it up for me. I'm guessing you had to tap into an existing line and split?

Yep I split the cold line, put a 2 way valve on it, ran the line to the fridge and had water... ice took a bit to start forming of course, but I have it working now, and you're right, for my first new water/ice fridge, its awesome!

Saves me money from buying jugs of water and bags of ice all the time now.

[mgoblue]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

Yep I split the cold line, put a 2 way valve on it, ran the line to the fridge and had water... ice took a bit to start forming of course, but I have it working now, and you're right, for my first new water/ice fridge, its awesome!

Saves me money from buying jugs of water and bags of ice all the time now.

Yeah, the ice takes a while to get going, but for normal use it'll be great. If you have a party you'll still want to buy bags of ice.

We cheered when we heard the first ice cube fall as we were cleaning other stuff in the kitchen lol

[23]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

Yeah, the ice takes a while to get going, but for normal use it'll be great. If you have a party you'll still want to buy bags of ice.

We cheered when we heard the first ice cube fall as we were cleaning other stuff in the kitchen lol

LOL

Yeah I worked hard to get that line in so I had to have the first ice and water.

[Phobia]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

LOL

Yeah I worked hard to get that line in so I had to have the first ice and water.

LOL nothing better than enjoying the fruits of your labor. Plus the satisfaction you didn't have to pay someone 3 times the price for them to do something you were capable of.

[Phobia]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

Just got the appraisal in. Looks like I lost about 10 thousand with the housing market the way it is. It is a buyers market without a doubt. The appraisal was not bad, but should of been closer to 170,000. It came in at 160,000.

Overall I am still way ahead of the game. 1,600 square feet, 160,000 appraisal comes to 100 dollars even a square foot. We purchased the house at 92,000 or 98,000 with closing & taxes, etc for 1,600 sqft which is 61 dollars a sqft.

I can hypothetically make 50,000 to 60,000 on the sale, that would be great amount for down payment on next home.

[mgoblue]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

Just got the appraisal in. Looks like I lost about 10 thousand with the housing market the way it is. It is a buyers market without a doubt. The appraisal was not bad, but should of been closer to 170,000. It came in at 160,000.

Overall I am still way ahead of the game. 1,600 square feet, 160,000 appraisal comes to 100 dollars even a square foot. We purchased the house at 92,000 or 98,000 with closing & taxes, etc for 1,600 sqft which is 61 dollars a sqft.

I can hypothetically make 50,000 to 60,000 on the sale, that would be great amount for down payment on next home.

Things will only get better as well...At some point the inventory of houses improves so that prices slowly go back up. That's what it's at in Phoenix. Lots of investors bought up the prior foreclosures and whatnot, so you're not finding all the awesome houses for cheap like you could 2-3 years ago.