Off-Topic: Tell Me Everything You Know: Real Estate

Home insurance shouldn't be more than $400-$550/yr on a house like that, and that's on the high end.

Closing costs vary - you need to talk to your mortgage company about it. You'll only really be able to tell how much when you see the good faith estimate. They'll charge a discount point that's ridiculous but it's always negotiable, so is the interest rate itself. Never just settle on what they put in front of you.

What do you mean make sure the bank doesn't use "their guy"? The mortgage company lending on the house isn't going to lie to themselves to make the house look good on paper, they WANT it to look good on paper. What you don't want is to use the selling agents appraiser or building inspector because they're motivation is only to have the deal go through.

You could always come buy my house, it's right in your range :)

Depends on your credit. If you have a 720 or higher FICO, you'll get approved for damn near anything you want.

Screw E-Loan. Call Countrywide. They're the best in the business in my opinion. In fact, I have a contact at the local branch here in Spokane, WA that you should call and he can probably give you a personal referral for someone who works for them in your neck of the woods. Don't deal with 3rd party brokers EVER - only deal with the lender direct, you may or may not save money on the fees but the process will be incredibly smooth and worth it's weight in gold.

Truthfully your wife's job isn't going to have much horse power on paper until she's been at it for 2 years or better.

At this point you better just hope your credit is in good shape so you can do a "reduced doc" loan - aka stated income, stated asset. You might actually have to get 'creative' with your financial statements a bit depending on your 'real' financial situation - but you do what you gotta do to get into your first house.

The job is not enough, correct. Banks don't make a habit of lending hundreds of thousands of dollars to someone just because they got a brand new job. Who knows if she'll like it, sustain it, etc.

The mortgage industry has changed dramatically in the last 4-6 months and it's even tougher to get a loan. It's good that your credit is 700+ because if not, you'd have trouble getting a loan regardless.

It's usually got a very small hike in APR doing low doc, no doc is even higher. If you do low doc, they're probably going to want to see cash reserves in a personal bank account equal to 6 months (or more) of mortgage payments.

We talked with a mortgage guy from Regions here in Bham. Going to put in an application and see what we can prequalify for. The Federal Home Loan program that gives you $10k is the real deal if you stay in the house 5 years (each year you stay, 20% is forgiven). So $10k for free. Awesome.

Will keep you all updated! Probably going to get him all of our information tomorrow to get the process started, then start finding an agent.

Another question:

If we have an agent, and seller has an agent, do they both get 3%? Or would my agent get 6% and the other agent nothing?

Brokers aren't all bad Eric just had a bad experience. I had a broker and she was great. Just go to a reputable place.

I meant a lender. He works for Regions -- a bank. They would lend us the money, right?

I used a broker for the house I just bought (moved in today!!!) - it saved me the time of having to compare 14 different lender rates and conditions. Since I wasn't going to save money going direct, it made sense to me.

If they ever reduced the rate if you went direct by even 0.05%, I'd would do the legwork myself.

Side note - interesting to hear how lending practices are south of the border after the subprime blowup. We still are fast and free up here (I was prequalified for a $600K mortgage). No low/no doc mortgages or adjustable rate stuff going on... yet.