Entries Tagged with mortgage

October 25th, 2006

Wanted: Little Red House

Posted in My Life, Little Red House by n. mallory

Well, it’s official. I’m pre-approved for a loan so I can make an offer in hopes of buying my little red house with it’s hardwood floors and nice-sized kitchen, even though it only has one bathroom and it’s on the first floor.

Red House

Apparently, I have an excellent credit score. I was very relieved to discover that. Now I’m trying to figure out what’s appropriate to offer, how to make an offer, and what comes next.

Clearly, I’m going to need to hire movers this time. I may see if I can get Sunny involved. ;) I mean, I have a good idea where I want things, but she obviously comes with organizational enthusiasm. :P Last night when we were having dinner and she was just looking at the pictures and discussing it all, she was getting all excited…and it’s my house!
My mother and I discussed the whole bathroom situation. I’ve decided that in a year or two I can hire someone to put a 3/4 bath in upstairs myself. I can live with it the way it is until then.

Folding TV StandIn the meantime, I’ll need to buy a TV stand for my television — the entertainment unit I have now isn’t going to withstand another move; every time the cats jump on it now, the whole thing just kind of sways and I hold my breath that it all doesn’t come crashing down. I’d be happy with something small that holds just the digital cable box, the entertainment system box (DVD) and the TV and kind of goes with my mission-style coffee table and end tables. Plus, it’ll need to sit catty-cornered between two those two front windows.

Mid-Size Super IslandI also need an island for my kitchen, though technically I don’t need it right away. I can use the the two person crappy table I’ve had for 7 years that was salvaged from somewhere in the depths of my grandmother’s basement and has to hide beneath a tablecloth — the chairs haven’t been seen without their homemade head-to-toe chair covers for 7 years either and they don’t quite fit under the table. However, I just have this feeling that the crappy table is never going away and the kitchen island with the breakfast bar is never going to be found if we don’t do something about it during the transition. You know what I mean?

I don’t actually have another table. You know, a dining room table. Or something that seats more than two people. Well, technically you can sit about four to six people around my coffee table if people sit on the sofa and the floor, but apparently my mother doesn’t think that’s very adult. My mother thinks that I can pretty-please my father into talking my grandmother out of one of her three tables that she’s not using since she’s now in assisted living, but I disagree even though I’d love to have her kitchen table — the other two are far too “fancy” for me. I think that my father would rather poke his eyeballs out with hot pokers than ask his mother to consider parting with any of her belongs that have been just sitting in her packrat over-stuffed non-occupied house for over eighteen months and I think he’d add having his teeth pulled without any Novacaine rather than using a single drop of gasoline to transport a table or that lawnmower my mom thinks my grandmother my sell me or any of the other stuff my mom wants to try to get my grandmother to donate.

I figure that it doesn’t all have to happen at once. I don’t need the lawnmower until Spring or Summer. I probably need a snowblower though. Some time this Winter, one weekend when I’m snowed in, I’ll paint one wall of my kitchen red. Some time in the Spring, I want to start a small herb and vegetable garden in the backyard. I want to add some shelves into the closets, maybe an area rug or two.
But for the most part, I have everything I need already, right? I mean, I’ve survived all of this time with the stuff I have. Once the animals and I move in, if we get the house, we can just spend some time settling in with what we have.

And a T.V. Stand, of course.

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October 24th, 2006

Not So Impressed With Lending Tree

Posted in My Life by n. mallory

My father had good luck with Lending Tree when they bought their house in New Mexico.  Apparently, Lending Tree was everything it advertises itself to be for them.  It presented four competitive offers, etc.  My dad was so extremely impressed with the agent they eventually went with that he still speaks very highly of him today.

Now, I’ve tried using Lending Tree in the past.  Twice I’ve tried to use the website to do debt consolidation with less than satisfactory results.  Both times in the past, I got only one or two offers, usually for credit card companies and usually for loan amounts much lower than I needed to consolidate and was asking for and interest rates higher than I already had.

So, when my mother and father encouraged me to apply through Lending Tree yesterday to see what offers I might get if I were going to buy one of those two properties which are both priced about the same, I was hesitant, but I did it.  After all, they’re my parents.  I no longer have any standing debt.  I have some savings.  I have lots of retirement money.  I think I look better financially.

So, the way that Lending Tree supposedly works as I understand it is that they guarantee you 5 offers in 24 hours.

What they don’t tell you is that each offer from each agent is considered one of those offers.  In fact, offers from different agents at the same bank/lending organization are considered a different offer.  In fact, an email with just a link to a website where you can apply for a loan is considered an offer.  At least that’s what I have deduced from my experience in the last 24 hours.

I received three (3) emails from Amerisave agents. One of the emails had two rate offers in it, one for a fixed 15 year and one for a fixed 30 year.  The other two agents just provided links to the website.

So that counts as four offers.

The fifth offer was an email with a link to Lowe’s Mortgage.

So, needless to say, I’m not impressed with Lending Tree…again.

And here’s a website for house hunters to bookmark.  My dad is keeping an eye on this: BankRate.com.  According to that site today’s 30-year fixed rate is 5.92%.  An FHA loan, which I would need as a first-time home buyer, would add 0.5% for the mortgage insurance.  That should only bring a quoted rate up to 6.42% for me.

Of course, I have no idea what my credit report says about me.

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