While we were cruising our way toward finishing up the modules on home ownership and educating our kids, real life got in the way. A revered elder was stricken with cancer but has not only survived, but thrived with chemo. Another family member faced a life-threatening illness but continues to fight back. God is good, all the time.
Needless to say, we all got a little distracted, and family meetings had to be postponed. We finally finished in August, and I'm going to devote separate blog entries to the home ownership module and the education module. This one is for home ownership.
First things first: Despite the housing market meltdown, I'm still a believer in home ownership. Why?
Because a home is usually the largest asset in the average American's portfolio, and most of us aren't savvy enough to make money off of stocks, bonds, and other investments alone.
Because of the mortgage interest deduction, for however long it lasts. For the life of me I can't understand paying rent for your entire life, getting a paltry renter's credit, if at all, and having nothing to show for all the rent you paid when you retire. I just don't get it.
Because home ownership, done properly, creates stability in your family. I've been on the poopy end of the rental stick, having been given 60 days' notice to move out of our rental solely because the landlord wanted to move back in. As long as I pay my mortgage, I have a place to stay that can't be taken away from me at someone else's whim. This is especially important when you have children.
Mind you, even if you pay off your home, you're not going to make a lot off of it in the long run unless there's another real estate bubble. That said, it is an asset that you can control and, to a certain extent, borrow against for large future expenses should you so choose, which I would not.
Because once you pay it off, you can hand it down to your children. A house is the biggest intergenerational wealth transfer for most average Americans. The ability to hand a house down to your children can, if done wisely, help them to maintain a middle-class lifestyle. Because we African Americans tend to have lower home ownership rates than whites, we tend to hand down less wealth to our children. However, home ownership rates for southern African Americans have usually been higher than for African Americans in other parts of the country.
I did not present the module on home ownership. Mary Assadi, an extraordinary realtor with Keller Williams and a friend of Black Man Not Blogging (BMNB), did. Mary outlined the basic home buying process and help us understand the different kinds of real estate loans you can get. More on that later.
What I did provide was a list of all the things BMNB and I did right and wrong in buying our home. They are:
1.
Not checking out our realtor. We used our realtor (who was not Mary -- we didn't know Mary was a realtor when we bought) because his mother had
name recognition and expertise in our real estate market. Although we did have access to her through
him, we should have found someone who was more experienced and who listened
more to what we wanted.
2.
Not seeking a mortgage through an independent
mortgage broker. We got our mortgage through Wells Fargo because
1) they did FHA loans; 2) they did CalPERS loans; and 3) BMNB banked with them
(my credit union did not do CalPERS loans). An independent mortgage broker has access to
a variety of loan products; a bank will only sell you what they have to offer,
and they probably won’t keep your loan in their portfolio. In our case, Wells Fargo eventually sold our
loan to Citibank, who later sold it to another bank.
3.
Not being clear on how much we wanted to spend. I wanted to spend more, BMNB wanted to spend
less. The realtor agreed with me, for
obvious reasons. BMNB had to set him
straight. It wasn't pretty.
4.
Buying a home in a new and incomplete neighborhood. We were lured to our relatively new
neighborhood by signs saying “School coming soon” and “Park coming soon.” Well, soon never came, and neither did the
school and the parks. Both the school
district and the city ran out of money.
Never buy in a new neighborhood that isn’t completely built out.
5.
Not checking out the finances of the school district
and the city. We should have never believed the parks and
schools signs and should have read the financial reports for both the city and
the school district to see if they really did have the money to finish the
parks and the schools. They didn't.
6.
Not double-checking the amount that needed to be impounded
for taxes. When you don't put down at least 20% for your house, your lender will require you to pay money in addition to your mortgage each month to cover the twice annual property tax bill, private mortgage insurance bill, and homeowner insurance bill. This additional money is held by the lender, or "impounded," until these bills become due, and the lender pays them. The bank got the amount of our monthly impound wrong, and we had to
play catch-up to pay back the amounts that weren’t impounded.
7.
Not checking on whether the neighbors next door were
renters. Not that all renters are bad – we were
renters, too. When you buy, however, you
don’t want to live next door to a rental house because you never know who your
neighbors are going to be for the long haul.
We specifically asked our realtor to check on this but he didn’t, and we
didn’t follow up. Our next-door
neighbors to the north are renters.
8.
Not checking on future development plans for nearby
neighborhoods. We didn’t know that a new neighborhood was
slated to be constructed near our neighborhood.
The school district doesn’t have the money to build additional schools,
and our neighborhood school is crowded as it is. When the new neighborhood comes on board, our
neighborhood school will be overcrowded and the streets may be gridlocked with
morning commuters.
9.
Not negotiating to have all or part of our
Mello-Roos bond paid. A Mello-Roos bond is a bond that all buyers
of new houses in California are responsible for paying to pay for the neighborhood
infrastructure such as sewers, lighting, etc.
They run from twenty to forty years.
You can negotiate to have the seller pay part or the entire Mello-Roos bond
or to lower the price of the home to compensate for the price of the Mello-Roos
bond. Buyers don’t like to buy houses
with huge Mello-Roos bonds, which will ultimately make our house harder to sell. Yep, we're pretty much sitting on rental property. Thanks, Henry Mello and Mike Roos.
10.
Not checking on where the local utilities are
located in relation to our house.
We knew that the railroad tracks were two blocks behind our home. What we didn’t know was that there’s a
petroleum gas line that runs right alongside the railroad tracks. Think San Bruno.
Here
are the successes BMNB and I had in buying our home:
1.
Using our own inspector. We wanted an inspector who didn’t have an
interest in the outcome, such as someone who was referred to us by our realtor.
2.
Checking out future freeway plans for the
neighborhood. We knew that a freeway bypass was slated to
come through our neighborhood, but we went to the CalTrans office to make sure
the bypass wasn’t going to be too close to our house.
3.
Buying a home that will suit us for the next ten
years. BMNB and I knew we planned to adopt, so we
wanted a home that would be big enough for the family we planned to have, not
the family we had.
4.
Getting a CalPERS loan. CalPERS no longer does home loans, but one of
the requirements of the loan program was to keep fees low.
5.
Buying in a neighborhood with a Home Owners
Association (HOA). A lot of people don’t like living in
neighborhoods with HOA’s because they don’t like all the rules. We like the rules because the rules keep your
neighbors from doing things to their property that brings down the value of
yours, e.g., painting their houses hot pink or parking their cars on the front
yard. It works for us, but it may not be
for everybody.
6.
Buying a foreclosure. Relatively speaking, we got a good deal. The down side? The house continued to lose value. That’s why we had to make sure it was
someplace we’d be happy to stay in for a while.
7.
Checking out the neighborhood at all times of the
day and night before buying. BMNB and I
made trips to our neighborhood during all hours of the day and night to get an idea of
what the neighborhood was really like – the sights and sounds during all hours
of the day – and to see how we would be received.
8.
Buying a house that suited our life style. BMNB and I are homebodies who like suburban
life. We like living someplace that is
quiet, safe, family-oriented, and away from congested cities. We chose our neighborhood because it was
affordable, safe, quiet and family-oriented.
Think about your own lifestyle – e.g., whether you are an urbanite who
likes to walk to the grocery store and ride your bike to work – before you buy
your house.
9. Getting a fixed rate loan. We got an FHA (Federal Housing Administration) 30 year fixed loan, which means that our monthly mortgage payments will be the same for the entire 30 years of the loan. No adjustable rates, no balloon payments, no interest-only loans.
9. Getting a fixed rate loan. We got an FHA (Federal Housing Administration) 30 year fixed loan, which means that our monthly mortgage payments will be the same for the entire 30 years of the loan. No adjustable rates, no balloon payments, no interest-only loans.
Here is A VERY BASIC GUIDE to home buying process as laid out by Mary Assadi with notes added by me. You should definitely consult a realtor and learn more about the process:
1. Initial consultation and market education: This is where you meet with your realtor to discuss what you're looking for and for your realtor to educate you about the real estate market you'll be dealing with. A good realtor tries to find out what you want and what your lifestyle is and then tries to find houses to fit you, not the other way around. And no good realtor should try to talk you into a house you cannot afford. (The old rule of thumb I'd always heard was that your home should not cost more than 2-3 times your gross annual income, but that may not always apply.)
2. Loan prequalification or preapproval: Prequalification is when your banker or mortgage broker reviews your credit, income and assets and determines how large a mortgage they think you would qualify for. Preapproval is when the banker or mortgage broker actually commits to you that you are approved for a certain amount of a mortgage. I would highly suggested getting preapproved instead of prequalified so you don't waste the realtor's time. With preapproval, you can lock in a mortgage rate for a certain number of days to allow you to find a home.
3. Viewing property.
4. Finding a home and submitting an offer. This is where you need to engage and trust your realtor. There can be some strategy to submitting an offer, especially if you are competing with other buyers. Your realtor's experience will be crucial to helping you put in an offer that stands out from all the others.
5. Negotiating terms. Your seller may reject your offer and provide a counteroffer. Negotiating the terms of the offer is an area of expertise for your realtor.
6. Accepted Offer! Yay! Now, the transaction enters three separate tracks that lead to closing, e.g., when you sign the loan documents.
a. Inspections, disclosures, and contingencies:
i. Schedule home inspection and review seller's disclosures of defects or things that need repair.
ii. Have home inspection and, if necessary, request that the seller make repairs before the transaction can go forward.
iii. Remove contingencies, e.g., conditions that need to be met in order for the buyer and/or seller to agree to the sale, such as requests for repair.
b. Escrow and Title
i. Open an escrow account and have earnest money deposited. An escrow account is an account controlled by a neutral third party, typically an escrow or title company, into which money for the sale of the house is deposited and held until all the contingencies are met. Earnest money is money you pay to show that you are serious about the transaction, and it is credited against the total price of the house.
ii. Get a preliminary title report and homeowners insurance information. A title report shows all the times the house has been sold and who bought it. It helps you know that the person who is selling you the house actually owns it. The title report will also reveal if there are any liens against the property. You will want all liens to be paid before closing.
c. Loan application
i. Submit a formal loan application and collect documentation for the loan. You will need bank statements, income tax returns, and all kinds of documents in order to qualify for a mortgage.
ii. Order appraisal; loan package submitted to underwriter. The bank will order an appraisal of the house to make sure it's worth what you're paying for it and worth the mortgage they're going to give you for it. Your loan application, once completed with all the proper documentation, will be sent by your banker or mortgage broker to their underwriting department, who will determine whether you qualify for the loan or if they have additional questions you need to answer in order to get the loan.
iii. Loan approval and responding to conditions: Your mortgage loan may be approved, but with conditions, e.g., explaining where you got your earnest money from, explaining things on your credit report. Once your respond to the underwriter's conditions in a way that satisfies the underwriter, you get your mortgage loan.
7. Sign loan documents at title company and provide a cashier's check for the required closing funds, also called "closing." Your closing costs may include fees related to the cost of escrow, the title search, the inspection, etc. You should get a Good Faith Estimate (GFE) in advance of signing the loan documents so you know how much of your own money you need to have in cashier's check at the time.
8. Lender funds the loan. Once you've signed all the loan documents and paid all the closing costs, the lender pays the amount of the mortgage loan to the buyer.
9. Title is recorded in your name and confirmation is received. Once the lender funds the loan, ownership, or "title," passes from the seller to the buyer by recording "title" with the county assessor. Once title is recorded, the house is officially yours.
10. GET THE KEYS TO YOUR NEW HOME!
Here are some examples of types of mortgage loan programs, courtesy of Mary Assadi:
Conventional Loans
- 20% down payment (no mortgage insurance)
- 3-5% down payment (mortgage insurance w/lower debt to income ratio)
- 3.875 interest rate (as of 5/4/12) for a 30-year fixed
- 3.00% interest rate (as of 5/4/12) for a 15-year fixed
- Impounds optional
- 3.5% down payment (up front and monthly mortgage insurance)
- 3.75% interest rate (as of 5/4/12) for a 30-year fixed.
- Impounds required
- 1 % down payment (upfront and monthly mortgage insurance)
- 3% down payment by CALHFA is a silent second mortgage on home (due upon sale with simple interest)
- Higher credit scores required
- Same interest rate on FHA loan for the first mortgage
- 3% down payment without mortgage insurance
- Only available on Fannie Mae foreclosure properties
- Interest rate usually 1 - 1.5% higher than available FHA rate
Resources
Mary Assadi http://maryassadi.com/
Eric Tyson and Ray Brown, "Home Buying Kit for Dummies "
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