Thanks Carl.

An adventure indeed.

If I gave a whole summary, it'd probably go from 3 parts to 30!

Thanks everyone!

Good for you. It is an adventure for sure. And short sales are unpredictable. Sounds like you did alright. Best of Luck.


Carl

PART 3

Naturally, we learned a great deal. Too much to list here but a couple things stand out.

OUR ATTY: there were pluses and minuses to our situation. My employer, like many, has a program where they provide certain legal services. It’s a part of our benefits package. Basically, there’s a list of attys you can chose from and they pay for it. That’s the good part. The bad part was, our atty was not good at all. ie.,

TITLE SEARCH: I hired a company to ours and saved a huge amount of money. I specifically told the atty that I didn’t want her to do the search – that I’d take care of it. She went ahead and did the search with a company she selected anyway! I told her I was NOT going to pay for it as we’re using our own company, as is our right – lots of back and forth but she finally relented. There were a whole host of other things she wasn’t good at either and many other things like this she tried to pull.

LENDERS: stand your ground – we did. All these hidden fees are insane. “application fee” What the heck is that? I’m not paying it. “commitment fee” You’re joking. You have 10s of thousands of my dollars in my hand – hello! I’m committed. I’m not paying it. On & on it went.

To my original question – turns out we never did qualify for much in the way of financial assistance for 1st time buyers. There were NO grants out there for us – all dried up. If there were any grants to be got, we couldn’t qualify due to income limits. And believe me, it’s nto like we make a jillion dollars a year! We’ll be happy with the $8k credit.

We’re thankful that we found a place with decent (for NJ anyway) taxes and under our budget. We never ever started out buying a place because of the falling prices or because of the way the mkt was going – we talked about buying long before this economic tsunami started but yes, it did end up benefiting us. We got what was more than fair deal for our house. We're not looking to flip or a house as an 'investment' - we just wanted a home. It's a new roof, got a 4.875 rate, good closing costs - we're happy. I know for certain that if this were 3 or 5 years ago, this place would have been about $30-$40k more. The seller knew what the market was and wanted to sell! We were able to get the place for only $5k more than our original offer. This just would NOT have happened 3 years ago – and certainly not in this area of Bloomfield.

Anyway – just wanted to share and follow up - thanks to everyone here who helped me with all my questions and for the advice.

Best of luck to everyone!

PART 2

CLOSE CALLS: we went under full contract with 3 houses – there was also 1 house we prepared to go under contract on – this was Sept 08. We went home, ate dinner and talked things over. By the next morn when we called our realtor, the house was already under contract with other buyers and bidding war had started. Funny enuff, all those contracts ended up falling apart and the house sold after a total of 14 months on the market! Orig asking was $345k then it dropped to $299k and people came running and the war started. One oil tank removal, asbestos cleanup and many months later, it sold for $295k summer 2009.

Oct 08, the first contract we signed we backed out of long before we even reached inspection. Don’t know what were were thinking. The house is still on the market as I type.

The second house was a great price. After a few days under contract, we found out there was a lien on it. Seller wanted to do too many shady things to get it sold. Surprisingly, so did the agent! We were terrified of not having a clean title and we ran like the wind. That particular house sold in 2004 for $359k. Summer/Fall ‘08 was on the mkt for $349k the dropped to $299k. It finally sold July ‘09 for $295k.

The last house was a short sale $289k. We signed contract fully knowing the process could takes months on end – no problem – we weren’t in any hurry. But while waiting, we had time to really let the property taxes sink in – that and a few other key things. So we kept looking while we waited and, we found the home that we finally ended up buying. We couldn’t be happier.

PART 1

Carl – ya got me with that last line!

Indeed – so many ask questions here but so many of us are never heard from again.

I’m guilty!

Here's some update!

Well we did indeed move forward with our purchase.

We closed in April 09.

SEARCH: we decided in April/May of ‘08 that we wanted to buy a house and be settled by April/May of ‘09. Wanted that full year not just to search but to get a full understanding of what we were doing as first time buyers. For months on end we did nothing but read, research, familiarize with various neighborhoods, and do our homework. Propertyshark.com is still my best friend (-: We met with a good # of agents and settled on a wonderful one in Bloomfield, based on a reference from my old boss.

And, there is a NJ program for those who qualify for the tax credit benefit up to $8000 from the feds. The NJ program is a loan of the expected credit you expect to receive by June, 2010. NJ will loan you up to $5000 of the amount you expect so you can use it to close before Nov 30. When you receive the credit from feds, you re-pay the loan to NJ. A few other states have a similar program. As others have said here, get with an agent who knows what they are doing and get some help. So many people ask questions here and then are never heard from again.

Janadeen, the so called grants from the Nehemiah and similar so called 'non profits' give you your own money. Whatever you get is added to the sales price so the seller can give it to the 'non profit' (Ameridream etc). The 'non profit' takes a small cut and gives the rest to the buyer for closing. You have 20% down. Get the closing costs from the seller directly rather than use one of those programs. If you qualify for a real grant (meaning you are not the ultimate funding source for it) go for it. Check the town or county where you live and also see if there are any state programs. Depending on your income there might be even though you have 20% to put down. If you were in NJ, I'd know were to refer you but not in NY.

Good luck.
Paul Howard

Janadeen, the FHA programs: The Nehemiah program, and Ameridream programs I was speaking of also can give a concession for closing costs up to 3% of the sales price , in addition to a 3% downpayment if needed. But as I prev mentioned they are going away soon, so act fast if you want to get in on it.

Also, Janadeen- you can negotiate that the Seller pays all or a portion of your closing costs. This is a common request.

Jeremy - thanks for that reply.

Can you tell me if our having the 20% to put down would DISqualify us from using such a program?

Thanks Gina.

But it’s closing costs specifically, that I’m trying to get info / help on.

Down payment wise, we’re ok – we have the 20%.

It’s closing costs assistance, if it’s out there, that I’m looking for help on.

Janadeen,

Yes there is! The State of NJ offers 1st-time Buyers and Buyers who have not owned real estate a great fixed 6.125% rate. You may qualify for up to a 4% grant that can be used towards your down payment and closing costs. Call me and I can provide you with more details and let you know whether qualify.

There is an FHA gift/downpayment assistance program that is going to be discontinued soon. If you have found a house already, maybe you can get in on it. You can get into a house for zero down this way.