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Tuesday, December 6, 2011
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14 comments:
boy inventory sure sucketh mightily.
i've been looking at what's available and not much.
now do we have the setup for a standoff?
will buyers decide to get into bidding wars?
will sellers continue to seek bubble era pricing?
to quote arnold rothstein: "Sometime there is just no play to be made".
Pat -- I've noticed that too . . . at least in the various areas I track or try to track. I've also noticed that some folks have delisted ... "better luck next year," or so the theory goes.
I think there are more folks in negative equity or near negative equity positions than is appreciated. This isn't good for the move-up market.
As an aside, there is a foreclosure near me that recently came onto the market. The actual foreclosure occurred more than one year ago. I wonder how long, before that, the occupant ceased making payments, e.g., 1 year, 2 years? Foreclosure is a slooooooooow process, apparently, even in NoVa.
Hello! New here, long time lurker, firs time poster.
I am trying to refi a condo in Norther Virginia and I'm quoted 4.25% for 30-year fixed. Zillow shows a current market average rate of 3.75% for VA. I have an excellent credit score. Is that really the going rate around here?
ben
shut up, take the deal.
mike
there is a reason vacancies are up
Ben, I got 3.75% at mortgagefool.com a week or two ago.
Ben-
I am not sure why Pat is being so grumpy when you asked a very reasonable question. Although to answer it we would need to know what percent equity you have, if the loan is over 417K, and whether you are willing to pay an origination point.
Assuming you have 20% down, a loan under 417K, and pay one point Wells Fargo would give you 3.875% https://www.wellsfargo.com/mortgage/buy/tools/rate_calc_results/
you can use this page to put in accurate numbers for yourself. I would also think about how long you plan on living there, because a 5 year ARM is way cheaper for the first 5 years, so unless you are planning on living there at least 7 or 8 year you may not want a fixed rate loan. Although I obviously know very little about your situation, so you would need to think about the pros and cons.
Ben,
APR is what you need to look at to compare apples to apples. Different lenders have different fee's (points, processing, underwriting, etc.). I'd look at Bankrate.com to compare lender rates for this region.
As HB pointed out, there are far too many variables involved to comment further.
If you put out further detail, I'm sure you'll get some helpful responses.
HB
the trick to a lot of things is to know what to worry about.
at most a half point on the rate isn't the one to worry about
pat (Mr. Cap-rate, ROI, etc.),
Half a point on 4%+- could amount to an interest rate cost difference of around 10%. Seeing that one's mortgage is usually their largest single expense, I'd bet most would care about such a rate difference.
As to your post regarding inventory (or lack thereof); what happened to your alt-A and reset tsunami?
Spring will be interesting...
"Army slashing 8,700 jobs as budget cuts begin"
"Most of the cuts are likely to occur in Virginia and Texas, where most of the DOD’s civilian workers are located."
Not *new* news necessarily, but more concrete.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/post/army-slashing-8700-jobs-as-budget-cuts-begin/2011/12/08/gIQAOWRxhO_blog.html?tid=sm_twitter_washingtonpost
Ben,
Run your numbers on Zillow and keep updating it several times a day; when you see a rate you like (4% or less should be available these days) Zillow rates are often better than others because brokers and lenders compete there for business. Rather than pay a point, you may get rebates even for the best rates. But you need to be careful about those brokers; many of them deal with small lenders whose underwriters sometimes are said to harass you after checking your tax returns in detail...their appraisers may give a low valuation, and there may be hassles during regular mortgage payments later on. I have heard about some Zillow lenders, such as Provident Funding, charging high fees for a single late payment.
Pat-
In addition to VA's comment of lower payments more of the payment goes to paying down the mortgage, so when you sell your mortgage will be lower. Assuming that Ben has a 400K loan and decides to live at the place ten years the savings between a 4.5% loan and a 4% loan would be ~$19,135. So I would hardly call saving ~$2k/year something to not worry about. Even if the loan is only $200K the savings would still be almost 1K/year, which is enough money that it is worth making a few extra phone calls.
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