For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

[bigeastbumrush]

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

Thanks aukevin.

Sounds like you have a pretty big pool.

Yeah, the vacuum hose is a pet peeve. I'd love to just set it & forget it but having to stand there and untangle it just defeats the purpose.

I'm going to look into that solar-powered skimmer.

[aukevin]

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

Ugh, need a new gas water heater. Freaking thing started leaking yesterday from inside, got my attic floor all kinds of wet because evidently there was a small hole in the water pan as well. Caught it in time before it messed up any of my ceilings I think, no visible signs yet of damage. Why contractors put water heaters on a second floor attic I'll never understand. Put it in the garage!

[GAMEC0CK2002]

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

Closing on the 23rd of next month.

[WazzuRC]

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

Approximately what % were you able to put towards your down payment (if you don't mind me asking)?

That's been the toughest part for my wife and I. A good home in our area is going to run us between 350-400k and I can't imagine us being able to save a ton for a down payment. My wife has student loan payments but otherwise we have little debt -- small car payment but no credit card which is great.

We've saved a decent amount, but nowhere near the 20% to avoid paying PMI. It's really frustrating because we could probably afford a mortgage, HOA, etc. if needed but I don't want to put down a minimal amount initially.

Any thoughts?

[Redacted01]

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

Approximately what % were you able to put towards your down payment (if you don't mind me asking)?

That's been the toughest part for my wife and I. A good home in our area is going to run us between 350-400k and I can't imagine us being able to save a ton for a down payment. My wife has student loan payments but otherwise we have little debt -- small car payment but no credit card which is great.

We've saved a decent amount, but nowhere near the 20% to avoid paying PMI. It's really frustrating because we could probably afford a mortgage, HOA, etc. if needed but I don't want to put down a minimal amount initially.

Any thoughts?

Get a 2nd. I got an 80/20, put 1% down, and the bank I went with actually had better rates than other places I looked. Overall much cheaper than having a high ratio first with PMI on top of it.

[roadman]

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

Ugh, need a new gas water heater. Freaking thing started leaking yesterday from inside, got my attic floor all kinds of wet because evidently there was a small hole in the water pan as well. Caught it in time before it messed up any of my ceilings I think, no visible signs yet of damage. Why contractors put water heaters on a second floor attic I'll never understand. Put it in the garage!

Ours is in the basement.

[Lava]

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

Approximately what % were you able to put towards your down payment (if you don't mind me asking)?

That's been the toughest part for my wife and I. A good home in our area is going to run us between 350-400k and I can't imagine us being able to save a ton for a down payment. My wife has student loan payments but otherwise we have little debt -- small car payment but no credit card which is great.

We've saved a decent amount, but nowhere near the 20% to avoid paying PMI. It's really frustrating because we could probably afford a mortgage, HOA, etc. if needed but I don't want to put down a minimal amount initially.

Any thoughts?

If there's nothing urgent, I'd wait until you have the 20%. It'll ease the stress on your cash flow and make being a home owner a much more enjoyable experience.

[WazzuRC]

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

Saving $70-80k is almost an impossibility with a newborn now and a growing family in the future. We'd be saving for another 10 years.

[Phobia]

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

I've worked the numbers back when we were buying, you dont come out much worse with PMI.

For instance my PMI monthly payment is $120. So thats $1,440 a year I'm paying in PMI, which if I stayed here the life of the lone will cost around 40,000. Which is around 20% more than my required downpayment if I wanted to drop PMI. I don't plan on here for the life of the loan so instead I'll most likely come out less than the required down payment.

Run the numbers is the best thing, if its your first home and not planned to be your long term family home then take the PMI, do some upgrades and sell the home in couple years to hopefully make 20,000 to 30,000 in appreciation. Then use that recouped money as your downpayment on your long term home.

I am sitting at $75,000 over my purchase price my home appraises for now. Im thinking another 3-5 years and couple more improvements i want to do, I should make close to $100,000 on this home. Then I'm selling it and building my long term dream home.

Just some info


Sent from da lil phone.

[GAMEC0CK2002]

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

Approximately what % were you able to put towards your down payment (if you don't mind me asking)?

That's been the toughest part for my wife and I. A good home in our area is going to run us between 350-400k and I can't imagine us being able to save a ton for a down payment. My wife has student loan payments but otherwise we have little debt -- small car payment but no credit card which is great.

We've saved a decent amount, but nowhere near the 20% to avoid paying PMI. It's really frustrating because we could probably afford a mortgage, HOA, etc. if needed but I don't want to put down a minimal amount initially.

Any thoughts?

20% (on a $190K new construction) I wanted to buy a house 2 years ago, but my cousin recommended I keep saving and not pull the trigger until then. I was able to move back home and save. Not everyone has that luxury.

[Redacted01]

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

I've worked the numbers back when we were buying, you dont come out much worse with PMI.

That really depends on your options. I mortgaged essentially the entire cost of my house. Had I gone with one bank, I would have needed 5% down (which I could have done but I wouldn't have much left to do anything else for awhile with the house), would have put 95% on a single mortgage, and PMI was $125 give or take for the loan I needed.

So for a comparable example to me, let's take a $250,000 house. You'd need $12,500 down, and then you'd mortgage the remaining $237,500 and at the time I was looking, 30 year rates were high 3's/low 4's, so let's take 4%. I'll use my escrow here and the monthly payment comes out to about $1250, and my escrow is low because I have no taxes for the first 5 years. Tack on your PMI and you're paying $1375 a month plus your down payment. Over 5 years, you'd spend $95000. Over 10 years, $177,500 (and you're PMI would probably be gone in the latter half of the 10 years if you only put 5% down). And that assumes your escrow is constant.

Now, you may not have access to these, but what I did was get an 80/20 and put just 1% down which I needed for earnest money any way. Now my first mortgage is only on $200,000. Throw in escrow and you're only paying $1070 a month with escrow at 4%. Then I have a 2nd, at a higher rate, 4.75% in this case, amortized over 30 years and it has a balloon payment at 10 years. You essentially defer your down payment to 10 years later, and if you move before then, don't even have to worry about it. So the remaining $47,500 is only $250 a month. Over 5 years, you spend less than $82000 (almost the down payment, but keeping that money over the next 5 years allows you to invest more in the house if it's more of a fixer-upper). Over 10 years, $160,900, but if you don't refi or sell it at 10 years, you essentially pay the downpayment you chose not to do 10 years ago and you had to pay interest on it. That's an extra $38,000.

In my situation, I can afford double payments so it made complete sense to me as I can pay it off in 7-10 years and I'll own it all. I couldn't afford 20% up front, but I can afford to put more in each month to make up for it. And I didn't want to sit out for another year or two saving money when rates are going to go up. I doubt I'd get the rate I did if I chose to start building this fall, or sometime next year.

It depends way too much on your situation, what loans are offered to you locally (or if you choose to use an online lender), what you can afford, what you want. To me, it didn't make sense to drain my accounts to own a home if I had a more affordable option over 20-30% of the loan and knew what I could do each month to make up for it. It didn't make sense either to keep renting and throwing that money away if I could afford the monthly payments no problem.

[Stu]

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

Approximately what % were you able to put towards your down payment (if you don't mind me asking)?

That's been the toughest part for my wife and I. A good home in our area is going to run us between 350-400k and I can't imagine us being able to save a ton for a down payment. My wife has student loan payments but otherwise we have little debt -- small car payment but no credit card which is great.

We've saved a decent amount, but nowhere near the 20% to avoid paying PMI. It's really frustrating because we could probably afford a mortgage, HOA, etc. if needed but I don't want to put down a minimal amount initially.

Any thoughts?

We put 10% down and only because we made a decent profit from selling our 1st house. A good house in my area is $500k+ right now so saving 20% is pretty unrealistic for most people. We have 2 mortgages (80% on 1st and 10% on 2nd). The rate on the 2nd is slightly higher but it was still more cost effective than paying PMI.

[mgoblue]

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

I've worked the numbers back when we were buying, you dont come out much worse with PMI.

For instance my PMI monthly payment is $120. So thats $1,440 a year I'm paying in PMI, which if I stayed here the life of the lone will cost around 40,000. Which is around 20% more than my required downpayment if I wanted to drop PMI. I don't plan on here for the life of the loan so instead I'll most likely come out less than the required down payment.

Run the numbers is the best thing, if its your first home and not planned to be your long term family home then take the PMI, do some upgrades and sell the home in couple years to hopefully make 20,000 to 30,000 in appreciation. Then use that recouped money as your downpayment on your long term home.

I am sitting at $75,000 over my purchase price my home appraises for now. Im thinking another 3-5 years and couple more improvements i want to do, I should make close to $100,000 on this home. Then I'm selling it and building my long term dream home.

Just some info


Sent from da lil phone.

Housing prices are going up here, so I'm hoping our home is at least 20k more valuable...eventually we'd love to sell it and get our more ideal home, and since we put like 10k down on it (220k purchase price), the added value should help us out a bit more on a slightly nicer house (not crazy, but probably thinking 250k-280k.

Will be tougher for us to really save up crazy amounts to add on our own though, so we'll see. Eventually I want to talk to a realtor to see what they think they could get our house for....

[23]

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

Eventually id like to move to another home as well. Id like to get hardwood floors and a sprinkler system first to up the value a bit more but the value has gone up aince we bought the home.

I must sat ive never gotten back as much in taxes as this past year and although i had to pay some to the state and irs we still had a nice chunk left. Next year should be just as good just not owing anything.

Do you think its better to get the wood floors done via a big store like lumber liquidators or home depot or a smaller store?

[Fresh Tendrils]

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

If you have the tools laying hardwood floor is pretty simple. I've been helping Ashleigh's parents lay down their hardwood floor in their extension and redid their living room on Sunday. They ordered from Lowes to take advantage of her dad's military discount.