Does anyone know a good place to search on the internet for homes (for sale by owner).

AND NOT GOOGLE I know someone is going to put that.

1/10/2007 9:57:35 AM

well normally i would read your first post as you know google exists and have tried it

but due to your thread in chit chat i have to assume you really have no idea how to use it....

also tww has a search engine


http://thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=432731
http://thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=410629
http://thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=409273

keep up the good work

1/10/2007 10:00:35 AM

haaahahah

gg

1/10/2007 10:08:46 AM

Check out For Sale By Owner magazine at local newstands. They have an office in Cary and are very helpful. I went to their free home-buying seminar a few months back and it was very helpful and informative. Believe it or not, they tell you tons about mortages and real estate transactions and there are no strings attached. The guy called me once afterwards to follow up and I never heard from him again. They also have home selling seminars, but those cost money.

(no, I don't work for them)

1/10/2007 12:52:37 PM

check craigslist...that's where jlancas03 found our home

1/10/2007 1:05:33 PM

what advantages are there for a buyer to looking exclusively for sale by owner besides severely limiting your options??

1/10/2007 3:28:56 PM

http://www.fsbo.com

1/10/2007 3:39:05 PM

http://www.fmrealty.com

I know of a GREAT realtor

1/10/2007 3:54:12 PM

Quote :

"what advantages are there for a buyer to looking exclusively for sale by owner besides severely limiting your options?? "

if you can talk the person down on the price of the house to what they would be selling it for through a realtor, then you'd save 5% of the cost of the house. Unfortunately, FSBO sellers are ususally nutcases with no concept of market value, so talking them down on the price rarely happens unless they have to get rid of the property immediately.

1/10/2007 4:11:14 PM

get a realtor

1/10/2007 4:57:28 PM

haha, Omar ftw

While I can read that you said

Quote :

"AND NOT GOOGLE I know someone is going to put that"

FINE, use dogpile, yahoo, whateve ... type "for sale by owner" and lots of stuff comes up.

1/10/2007 5:41:23 PM

I like FMRealty's website for searching. It seems to have the best search options and I like the Yahoo maps that are integrated.

As for FSBO, it can be good or bad. Most FSBO people think their house is worth more than it is, and they are cheap bastards. If they won't pay for a realtor's services they are probably too cheap to come up with a decent asking price and negotiate for damages.

I had good luck finding a FSBO, but the situation was a little different. The lady tried to sell this house, had a bad experience (rented to a guy for a year while he tried to get financing,) and was really just ready to get rid of it with as little effort as possible. I got in touch with her through an ad that I posted and came into the scene at just the right time. I said I'd buy the house and I wouldn't ask her to fix any of the small things that the house needed. She got almost as much as if she had paid the realtor 6%. I got a house for well under it's appraisal value. We were both happy.

I think the best way to find a FSBO is to advertise yourself (WTB ads on Craigslist, neighborhood forums, talk to lots of people and ask if they know of houses coming up for sale, etc.) If you see a FSBO that is being advertised then it's probably not worth your time.

1/10/2007 6:02:28 PM

thank you everyone
thanks for the info eraser

Yes I have used google for a while now. I also know how the tww search engine works too. I had to go back to work, so I made a thread. Checked it later. Quit trying to be cool faggots.

1/11/2007 8:36:27 AM

so, in order to hijack a thread,

as a first time buyer, im looking to get up a downpayment now

for a $250k home, what would you shoot for for a downpayment?

1/18/2007 10:56:14 PM

20% so you avoid paying PMI (private mortgage insurance)


I was thinking dang 250K is expensive for a starter home but then I remembered where you're at

[Edited on January 18, 2007 at 11:16 PM. Reason : ouch for the payments]

1/18/2007 11:15:36 PM

yeah 250 is about baseline for run of the mill houses in the area id like to stay in. its in the middle of the city, a great neighborbood and easy commutes to work.

theres plenty of alure to being in the city, but it may be too expensive. I would love to stay in the neighborhood im in now, but there's just no way. There's one i was looking at, a split house just down the street. 3 bdrm, 2.5 bath, no garage, on street parking, shared yard. But the 450k was just too high.

However, Ive found a few that are a few blocks over that are more reasonable, hence the 250.

however, most properties in the burbs start at around 200, so it's not that big of a difference.

1/19/2007 9:36:29 AM

if you're credit is really, really good (730+) some lenders will let you do 5% down, 80% on a 1st mortgage, then 15% on a secondary mortgage. That way they're financing 95% but you're still not paying the mortgage insurance since technically you don't have more than 80% LTV on any of your mortgages.

1/19/2007 10:17:13 AM

yeah i was reading about that plan the other day.

it sounds pretty enticing, do you have direct experience with it?

1/19/2007 10:35:38 AM

i'm considering buying the house i've rented for the past 2.5 yrs.
If we cut out the realtor and build the closing costs into the cost of the home and the mortage is equal to or less than our rent.. then it's worth considering.

it's not my ideal home but its a very nice starter home and we're comfortable there.
It does need work but and that should lower the cost.

only thing is i commute from raleigh) almost in Garner to Durham for work every day... and do i really want to deal with traffic for years?

1/19/2007 11:00:08 AM

Where do you want to buy? I'm putting my house on the market at the end of the month but I live out in the county(10-10 road inbetween Holly Springs Rd and Lake Wheeler Rd)

1/19/2007 11:09:28 AM

^^^I was going to go that route. It's a pretty good program. The 2nd mortgage has a higher rate, of course, but it's still better than wasting money on PMI.

I ended up going with a 10% down ARM from the credit union though. With that, my rate is much lower early on, there is no PMI, lower closing costs, & they only wanted 10% down, instead of 20% (no 2nd mortgage). It'll save several thousand the first few years, but I only expect to be in my home ~5 yrs. Interest rates are fairly stable, so this way saves you money for a few years, then you refinance when rates get better. Just something to consider.

[Edited on January 19, 2007 at 11:13 AM. Reason : ]

1/19/2007 11:13:23 AM

check out http://www.trulia.com

1/19/2007 11:19:55 AM

Quote :

"do you have direct experience with it"

i did an 80/20 so I didn't have to put any money down. It's worked out pretty well.

I did a lot of searching http://www.realtor.com when looking for my house

1/19/2007 12:14:12 PM

Quote :

"yeah i was reading about that plan the other day. it sounds pretty enticing, do you have direct experience with it?"

I did the 80/15/5 and it's probably the best way to go if you don't have 20% or don't want to put 20% down.

the 15 is done as a HELOC which carry a higher interest rate, (mine is prime -.5), but like the main mortgage, the interest is tax deductible.

1/19/2007 12:17:15 PM

I did 79.5%/20.5% with no money down and avoided mortgage insurance. it all depends on your credit score.

1/19/2007 1:22:33 PM

Paging Str8BacardiL... my fav TWW realtor

1/19/2007 3:40:32 PM

Quote :

"it sounds pretty enticing, do you have direct experience with it?"

Yep - that's how we bought our house. The 5% down bought us a lower interest rate than doing an 80/20. Mortgage #2 is autodraft ... it's technically due on the 1st of the month but they always seem to draft a week later. It's important to note we have our mortgage through the same place we bank with.

1/19/2007 3:48:24 PM

Thanks!

Quote :

"it all depends on your credit score."

care to quantify a little bit?

1/19/2007 3:51:08 PM

700+ ?

[Edited on January 19, 2007 at 3:56 PM. Reason : oops, you said quantify]

1/19/2007 3:56:07 PM

I would guess it has to be over 750 to do 100% and no PMI ... or perhaps that lender wasn't as stringent? We did our 5/15/80 with BoA and our scores were 720 and 730 respectively.

1/19/2007 11:35:04 PM

my parents build custom brick homes in Clayton and JC, PM if you want your dollar to go far.

1/20/2007 1:31:43 AM

Does anybody know what the average difference between listing prices and selling prices is in Wake county? Specifically for 10-20 yo houses from 150k-250k.

1/20/2007 10:22:21 AM

the reason I said that it depends on your credit score is because you're going to need a really good score to qualify for 100% financing without getting stuck with an astronomical interest rate on the line-of-credit loan.

1/20/2007 2:10:33 PM

Anybody bought a house in the last few years? What was the listed price and what did you pay?

1/21/2007 9:45:51 AM

http://www.google.com

[Edited on January 21, 2007 at 10:14 AM. Reason : can't believe no one had done this.]

1/21/2007 10:14:28 AM

Quote :

"AND NOT GOOGLE I know someone is going to put that."

1/21/2007 10:45:58 AM

Quote :

"if you're credit is really, really good (730+) some lenders will let you do 5% down, 80% on a 1st mortgage, then 15% on a secondary mortgage. That way they're financing 95% but you're still not paying the mortgage insurance since technically you don't have more than 80% LTV on any of your mortgages."

That is what we did....do it if you can

Quote :

"Anybody bought a house in the last few years? What was the listed price and what did you pay?"

We did in April 2005. List for 299,900....we paid 304,000 and they paid half closing

4 bed/ 2.5 bath, 1 car garage, 1/3 acre wooded fenced lot on a cul de sac in spotsylvania VA

1/21/2007 11:12:24 AM

4 bedrooms, 1 Car garage

no thanks.



I'm loving my new 2 car garage.

1/21/2007 11:35:18 AM

I almost went with 1 car, but my realtor highly advised I go with a 2 car garage for resale purposes.

1/21/2007 11:37:35 AM

I got a 1 car garage that's big enough to squeeze two cars into. All the extra space is nice for keeping my tools and workbench in a place that actually allows enough room to work on a car.

1/21/2007 12:33:47 PM

bare minimum is a 2.5 car garage

with nothing on the side walls, we could get three sedans in there with room to get into all of them

you could take apart two cars at the same time comfortably

1/21/2007 12:37:02 PM

Quote :

"I got a 1 car garage that's big enough to squeeze two cars into."

Then wouldn't that be a 2 car garage?

1/21/2007 1:37:02 PM

technically it only has one bay in it, but there is room to pull a car into the garage, parallel park it to the side, and then pull another car into the leftover space. it's a strange layout, but it works very well for me since I wanted a garage for project space and not just to store a car.

1/21/2007 2:27:08 PM

I remember using a lender called Nationpoint that let you put as little as 5% down with no PMI

1/21/2007 2:28:33 PM

Don't you have to do a piggy back then? I hate it when lenders brag about no pmi as if the piggyback were a significantly better alternative.

1/21/2007 2:52:14 PM

For those who can join SECU, you can get a 2/2 ARM 100% LTV.

1/21/2007 2:57:12 PM

I'd avoid the arm and go with a 30 yr fixed if you could scratch up a small down payment.

1/21/2007 3:01:03 PM

^^ That's with no PMI, BTW. You can also get an ARM and refinance to a fixed mortgage later. This particular loan limits the rate from rising more that 1% every two years and max of 8% over the entire loan.

It's hard to get a decent 30yr fixed without 20%, paying PMI, or one of the schemes above. I'm not sure that saving up 20% is worth it, after spending the last 2.5 years getting 10%.

[Edited on January 21, 2007 at 3:05 PM. Reason : ?]

1/21/2007 3:03:31 PM

Quote :

""AND NOT GOOGLE I know someone is going to put that.""

...which is exactly why someone should suggest it



yes. I'm immature.

1/21/2007 3:03:40 PM

Quote :

"I'd avoid the arm and go with a 30 yr fixed if you could scratch up a small down payment. "

I did a 30 year fixed with no down payment. The rates have been so low the last few years that it made no sense for me to go with an ARM just to save a quarter to half percent for a couple years.

1/21/2007 3:21:45 PM