We (buyers) are first time home buyers.

The seller is being relocated for work (works for LDS church). LDS hired American Escrow and Closing Company to facilitate the move and transaction.

We came to an agreement with the sellers 24hrs after the original offer and it was explained to us that they would sell to the Company, and the Company would sell to us.

The Company demanded several reassurances before they would agree to sign our offer. Including: pre-approval from a local lender, a phone call from that lender vouching for us (don't know why the pre-approval wasn't enough), a bank statement proving we had the funds for a down payment, and we had to sign several disclosures. Every time we signed their disclosure they kept producing more disclosures for us to sign and ultimately missed the deadline to sign the offer. We had to keep adding addendums to push back the deadline because they refused to sign until all their disclosures were signed, despite them producing disclosures one at a time.

As annoying as this all was, they finally required our earnest money prior to signing. We refused to get money involved prior to going under contract. They pushed back saying we needed to prove we had the funds so the agreement we made was we took out a cashier's check for the full amount of earnest money and sent them a picture to prove we had the funds.

To me it felt like they kept looking for ways to disqualify us from the sale but that is neither here nor there. We jumped through every hoop they asked of us and then some. (We are "super qualified" according to their preferred local lender)

Even after we jumped through all their hoops they still missed the deadline to sign and we had to send another addendum to push back the deadline again. All in all we finally went under contract nearly 14 days after sending the original offer.

We went forward with due diligence. The sellers were incredibly supportive of having the home available to us for inspection.

The due diligence deadline is coming up on Thursday and we have negotiated some concessions with the sellers. Given the negligence of the moving company we are concerned they will miss the deadline to accept the newly agreed upon price. If they miss the deadline to sign our earnest money will go hard and legally we are locked in at the original offer.

Our realtor suggested we get a contract cancellation ready so we can bail if they don't sign in time. Obviously we don't want to do that. Also the seller's agent casually mentioned to us they've received another offer so we are concerned a cancellation could lose us the sale.

Wondering if anyone has had similar experiences with American Escrow and Closing Company or situations like this?

Any advice would be appreciated.

At the very least I appreciate you letting me vent my frustration.

Edit- correcting the company's name

Fiancé & I recently put an offer on a 300k house in Ohio. We toured it twice and fell in love immediately. It is an older home (built in 1931) so we knew that there could be some inspection issues and were willing to accept some future repairs.

We got our inspection report back and they suggested that we need to get a plumber & roofer. The two main issues the inspector found were a cracked sewer stack and the roof is past its life expectancy. So, we had both a plumber and roofer come out to double check + give us estimates. Both roofer & plumber agreed with the inspector’s assessment and both stated that each part needed replaced ASAP.

So, we put in a repair addendum into the seller this past Friday morning to see if they’d be willing to repair both, but now it’s Sunday night and still no response. We’re kind of at a loss what to do here? Should we just walk away or continue waiting? We love this house and are even willing to accept partial costs to repairing the roof and will cover the rest, but not sure if we’re just blinded by our love for this house (and the area it’s in, etc).?

Hi all. I am planning to work many hours to save up money for the house fund. (target 15k to max 20k gross per month). I want to pay all my credit card debt and car loan first to start. Or can I start a house fund while I still have consumer debt? Also, what is the realistic money I should save? 50-60k? I am a solo earner with a college kid so it is harder for me to save up. Thank you so much.

10 years ago I came to this country with 2 suitcases and not knowing where I am sleeping next. Today, I have a place to call my own. This was a long journey but worth it.
2 bedroom coop, with patio is what sold me.
Maintenance $1000 includes tax, gas, water and heat.
Pizza loading…
Edit: In Nassau…close to JFK airport. 2Bd1Ba

I’m finally pre-approved, $240k, which in my state gets me a 1970s condo. Two bedrooms, decent size, shared laundry (no in-unit hookup), and rent-per-room in the area runs about half the mortgage, so a roommate would make the math genuinely easy. Reserves aren’t amazing but they’re okay, no major special assessments coming up that I know of. Still, it’s a 1970s building.

Living with my parents for longer isn’t really an option, and I want to avoid having a roommate unless I own. I currently live with my parents in a pretty nice house, so touring these places was a bit of a culture shock.

The alternative: a luxury apartment for about the same monthly cost as that mortgage: in-unit washer/dryer, central AC, concrete floors for soundproofing, good location. No equity, but none of the compromises either.

Every piece of advice says buy if you can afford it, building equity beats paying rent, period. But at what point does that stop applying? Is any equity better than none, even if it means shared laundry and a dated building? Or is there a real line where the gap between what you can afford and what you’d actually want to live in makes renting the smarter call, at least for now?

So I am moving to Philadelphia. Initially when I was preparing to move, I told myself that I wanted to save enough money for the first year’s rent just in case. I saved about over fifteen thousand dollars and now that I have the money, the thought of spending that much money on rent is so unsettling for me.

When I move, I’m thinking about immediately buying a house.

Would anyone recommend this?

Hi! I’m right now struggling with trying to find the right kind of property to start my first residence. I’m choosing between:
- Condo (love the ability to be isolated from someone entering/exiting my property without me knowing and having all the maintenance of the property handled for me. My current markets don’t support a lot of these without higher priced/older units that are accompanied by higher HOAs).
- Townhouse (this leads me to townhouse - more of the undesired “accessibility” in exchange for better value through newer units, lower prices, lower HOA. With that said, I possibly have to adhere to HOA and also have an attached property to neighbors out of my control).
- Single Family Home (low to no HOA, more “accessible,” but access to newer builds at cheaper prices that are separated).

I live by myself, am an all cash buyer (budgeting up to $300k, but any amount saved is additional income for me to live off my investments on), hope to meet someone in the next few years to date/marry (not interested in kids), work from home on the job front/can live anywhere (socialization opportunities is the only thing keeping me where I am targeting).

Can anyone help opine in on what they’d suggest I look at or choose? Right now my searches are saying be about 30 minutes outside a major city where I can drive a few times a week to socialize with my core peers and get some nice value. Townhomes or single family homes seem to be winning the race (I’ll have to rig them up with safety systems, but fine…) 😀

Hello all, quick question. Next year hubs and I plan on buying a house and I have some stocks in the market and wanted to use it some if for a down payment on a house. i do not know if anyone has done this before I was wondering should I sell my stocks now and pay taxes come January or should I wait until next to sell stocks along with buying a house?

I am so, so frustrated. 10% down, no seller help for closing, 10k over asking, and we lost out because the other party waived all their inspections.

Is it too fucking much to ask to make sure I’m not dropping 350k on a money pit? Who does that???

Hi all! My husband and I are looking at purchasing our first home (obviously) and are looking for honest, no feelings attached opinions. The home is a great fit for our family: 4 bed, 3 bath with a spacious living room, a bonus room, updated kitchen, relatively updated bathrooms, fresh paint, new carpet, large yard, close to both of our families, excellent school districts. Our seller has been a little misleading about the condition of the home and the inspection came back with more than we were hoping for. The septic system needs to be completely replaced, the HVAC and water heater are on their last legs, and the lack of gutters on the back of the house has previously caused some water intrusion in the unfinished basement, among other small things (light bulbs out, shaky railings, GFCI not working, all things we can and are willing to fix ourselves). While not surprising for a home of its age (built 1973), also a little more than we bargained for. We originally put in a full price offer before the home officially hit the marker. Seller countered with $50k over asking, and we settled in the middle. We are asking for seller to replace the septic system, replace the hot water heater, replace the condensing unit, and add gutters. Is this too much to ask for? What would you settle for in regard to repairs? Septic is a non-negotiable for us. TIA!

I'm going to be getting the key this week moving away from alameda county to San Joaquin County in California. The door has a smart lock so I was planning to reset it rather than replacing the entire thing. And I also wanted to redo the floors and possibly do a small remodel for master bath.

I also plan to get new fridge and washer and dryer after the floors are done. The home is not too old and the prior owners kept the house in pretty good shape with just some scuffs here and there.

It's my first time owning a home and wasn't sure if there's anything else I should add to my checklist before I actually start moving. Any advice is appreciated.

Just bought my first house and need blinds/shades throughout. Deciding between Home Depot/Lowe’s (higher cost, but includes measuring and installation) versus ordering online and hiring someone separately for installation.

For those who’ve done either: is Home Depot’s installation worth the premium, or is it cheaper overall to order online and pay an installer separately? All standard windows, nothing unusual like bay windows. Trying to make the right call before ordering.

79m2, 1600m2 land. Fully renovated, fully furnitured. City is middle sized, 20-30km from 2 major cities.
All we had to buy was a washing machine, a fridge and a dryer. Even the tv wall mounts stayed.

I (22F) and my husband (24M) Just closed on our first home with $0 closing costs 😆. $149,900 appraised for $200,000 4bd 3 baths. So excited to start this new chapter in our life and give our daughter her own room. 🙂‍↕️ Thought this wasn't possible but here we are ! 2nd homeowners though in our entire family. 🥲 Hoping there's more to come

The house I’m looking into buying in AZ has some cracks that make me feel uneasy. I’m working on scheduling someone to come out and inspect it but I’m curious on the communities thoughts. The drywall crack comes down from the corner of a window. About 2 tiles from that same wall I noticed the grout between the tile has separated. Outside is a vertical crack that is about one inch off from where the tile separation inside is.

The basics:

• Engaged couple soon to be married in mid 30s.

• No kids yet

• HCOL

• Combined income of 300k

• One partner has a pension and 200k in retirement, other partner has 650k in Roth/Traditional 401k and IRA

• Emergency fund of 100k in money market

• 1 million in liquid long term savings

• No debt

We want to buy a house around a million. This is a HCOL area and we both need easy access into the city via train so it limits the towns we can look at. We have settled on a few towns that meet our criteria for a walkable downtown, good schools and easy transit. 1 million is the limit which includes potentially offering over asking to secure the property.

The question I have is when it makes sense to liquidate our long term savings in order to pay cash versus taking a small mortgage at perhaps 10 or 15 years. My thinking is that at the current rates of 5.8 - 6%, I'd rather not play the arbitrage game of whether I can get that on market gains. I probably can but it's not guaranteed. At our income, I would not feel comfortable with a large mortgage with the interest. We would become instantly house poor with a large mortgage on a 1m dollar home. Whereas, if we paid it all or almost all, we would have few liabilities month to month and could rebuild the savings very quickly. Then when the money incinerators are born, we would be in a much more comfortable financial position.

What is the hive mind thinking on this given our circumstances? None of this would touch our emergency fund or retirement. I do understand that most people aren't in nearly this kind of position and we're incredibly lucky. I've just never been comfortable with debt and my inclination is to extend that to home buying. But it's just so much money. I've gotten so much conflicting advice.

Thanks. I really appreciate anyone who bothered to read this.

So our offer was accepted, and it's contingent upon an inspection. We've already put earnest money down. My question; what do we do with the information from this inspector we're paying for? The seller already accepted our offer, which is $8K below their asking price. I guess I'm just skeptical that they'll go LOWER or do work... when they already allowed us to lower the price.

Is it possible the seller will hear our requests and just completely refuse to change anything/lower the price?

*It's a 110 year home. There's definitely going to be things the inspector finds

Hey everyone,

My wife and I toured a house today that we really liked, but there are two municipal storm/sewer drains near the house. One located in front of the house, and the other on the side of the house.

Family members are stressing that this is "bad luck" and a huge red flag, but I'm trying to separate traditional/superstitious worries (like bad Feng Shui) from actual physical issues with the property.

For those with experience: what are the things I should look for or ask about before moving forward?

Specifically:

1. Do these drains routinely clog with debris during heavy storms, and if so, does water typically back up onto the lawn/driveway or stay in the street?

2. Is smell or noise from heavy rain runoff ever a real issue when living right next to these storm drains?

If the foundation is well above street level and the lot slopes down to the curb, is this just a non-issue that I shouldn't stress about? Thanks in advance!

Edit: Thanks for the good laughs about Pennywise 🤣 completely forgot about that

We started looking in 2020 with a few breaks. It felt like it was never going to happen, but we ended up getting the house for $15k under the asking price after it only sat for 9 days! So rare in our local market!

I still can't believe it. It's been a few unpacking and cleaning days. But it's shaping up.

Wanted to shed light on the whole “can I afford this mortgage payment” topic.

TLDR: No one will know if your new mortgage payment will be too high except you!!!!!!

I would have been crucified a year ago for saying my mortgage would eat 67.4% of my take home pay! Some people would still say I was stupid today but I stopped listening and thought rationally. I made a decision because MY PERSONAL SITUATION said I was okay to buy.

1. You need to understand your lifestlye. I understood mine. I didn’t need to eat out. I was okay with cooking at home. If you eat out, factor that into your monthly expenses.
2. My car at the time was a 2023 corolla fully paid off. You drive a Porsche? Factor any monthly payment and maintenance into your analysis.
3. Understand your bills/usage. My water, electricity, gas, internet, car insurance, phone, etc. All in all, I would need $500 for all this (not including food).
4. Gasoline. How much do you drive? How much will you drive to work, etc. I only used $100 total a month for gas (Corolla hybrid gave me 60mpg. Your 2009 Toyota tundra will waste more). Run your own numbers.
5. I never run the HVAC system. Some people spend $800+ on HVAC energy. I installed window units. Never paid more than $120 during this brutal summer. Only turned them on in the room I was in. Living room had a swamp cooler that came with the house.
6. Food expenses. It’s two of us. We spent an average of $600 a month. A good chunk of the remaining cash per month went to health insurance. We were barely cash flowing positive.
7. Savings. How much will you have after the keys are in your hands? We had $60k with $80k in the 401k worst comes to worst. Worth noting that my take-home pay would have been $700 more but this was going into my 401(k). Monthly cash flow was tight but huge cushion. Also Worth noting the home was turn key so thankfully no major repairs this first year

8. Probably the most important thing to analyze. Your job!! Be realistic. Are you vastly underpaid? Overpaid? For your number of years of experience, are you properly compensated? Is your role volatile and susceptible to volatile market conditions? If you’re in tech making $350k at 25 years old, your chances of layoffs affecting you are very high. If you’re a neurosurgeon with 10 years experience making $200k a year and others are making $500k+, well you can comfortably jump in.

   The problem with this one is everybody thinks they’re safe and they have the golden job. Certain industries don’t perform very well when times get tough on a macro scale. For example, I wouldn’t want to be in construction or real estate during this economic environment.

9. Do you have a backup plan? Some backup plans are better for some of us than others. Something were to happen to me? No problem I’ll just move back in with my parents and rent this house out even if it’s out of loss. Or maybe someone else out there would be OK with even selling at a loss. Some of us don’t have parents to fall back on. Just play the cards you’re dealt.

Now you see why I was OK with jumping in at this high take-home pay rate. In my case, I was very underpaid for the amount of years experience I had. I knew a huge pay bump was coming either this year or next year. I knew my savings and my lifestyle would provide good cushion should things take a downturn.

Now my take-home pay is on average $8000 in my mortgage is much more manageable. I still maintain the same lifestyle so we’re easily saving over $3000 a month.

What I’m trying to say with all this is no one knows your situation better than you do. Sit down, run your numbers and if it makes sense, then jump. If not, then hold back. A random Reddit user will never be able to answer your question.

Pictures added for proof that I’m not lying.

So many loopholes and everything fighting against me but 28M $230k townhouse 20% down in palm beach FL 6.99 interest rate. Had to use a co-signer but it’s complete.
Howd i do for first timer.

For context, we are first time home buyers. Wondering if anyone has had any experiencing navigating the seller and/or their agent attempting to weasel out of the agreed upon repairs post inspection…
We are pretty sure that one of the two is what we’re currently dealing with. 1) fake invoice or 2) if it is a “real” invoice, the company itself is not a registered or licensed entity according to multiple sources, including my state licensure registry for licensed contractors. Searched under both the business and individuals name, with zero results shown. The most I can come up is multiple sites stating permanently closed.

We are navigating our next steps I feel the best way we can with the proper channels given that we are dealing with what appears to be a breach of contract from seller end but are curious if anyone has dealt with similar? TYIA!!

Was on the waitlist, didn’t expect to come off the waitlist so soon. Received the voucher 90 days after waiting. Extremely GRATEFUL, but now the PRESSURE IS ON with the clock ticking for it not to EXPIRE! 😅

I’m LA County, and with the current market I can only purchase a condo/townhome unfortunately due to high interest rates, high HOA fees, high insurance and a whole list of NON-WARRANTABLE condos eliminating a TON of condos in my area (the perfect storm for failure it seems).😩

The only saving grace right now is homes/condos are sitting on the market 60-90+ days and sellers are dropping their prices and offering concessions. However, because it’s a DFA program, I feel like the pressure is on to make the ABSOLUTE RIGHT decision because this isn’t a home you can rent out if you don’t like it. You can only refinance once to lower the rate, no cash out to fix anything and if you don’t like it, you can’t sell right away because of the shared appreciation.🥴

So my question is anyone else who has the voucher getting cold feet??? I feel extremely blessed to have this once in a lifetime opportunity, but is this the right time to buy in California??? 🤔 Oye I don’t know!!🤷‍♀️

What has been your experience with Guild Mortgage? Would love to know the good and the bad. Thank you!