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Has anyone bought a home in the last 3-4 months?


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2020 Jul 10, 6:29pm   1,084 views  19 comments

by BayArea   ➕follow (1)   💰tip   ignore  

I’m curious what mortgage did you take out, what mortgage products are being offered, interests rates, etc?

Did you go with fixed, adjustable, or interest only?

How large of a down payment?

What interest rate did you get?

I followed up with my mortgage consultant back in April and many lenders weren’t offering many options due to risks associated with the unknown of Corona virus. I haven’t checked much in the last 2months however.

I look forward to hearing your experiences, thanks!

Side-note: I’ve seen absolutely no drop in home prices yet as a response to Corona virus. I guess that’s what happens when interest rates drop to 0 and the government pumps stimulus money into the economy,

Comments 1 - 19 of 19        Search these comments

1   Blue   2020 Jul 11, 12:43am  

I was just listening to Michael Savage show, he suspect 20% drop in $ value each year for the next two years. Does it indicate RE will not go down.
2   BayArea   2020 Jul 11, 6:13am  

Blue says
I was just listening to Michael Savage show, he suspect 20% drop in $ value each year for the next two years. Does it indicate RE will not go down.


Zero chance of this. The government would have to treat housing as a legitimate fraud free game for that to happen.
3   B.A.C.A.H.   2020 Jul 11, 4:19pm  

... and what property tax bill did you lock in?
4   Hircus   2020 Jul 11, 4:51pm  

A friend got 2.5% 30yr fixed a couple weeks ago. Not sure about down payment.
5   mell   2020 Jul 11, 5:03pm  

Prices will drop some. Of course with Covid-19 you will see the opposite effect first because pretty much all shorings are canceled and few houses are on the market. So sales plummet massively but the ones that do sell are those that are very desired, often it's desired land on fixer uppers and/or tear-downs. You can read the headlines trying to pump the price action, but without any meaningful quantity in sales price action is irrelevant. I don't see a crash either but as soon as people can put their houses on the market again and have people touring it we will get a better feel for the price action. Bay area housing esp. is deeply controlled by families, corporations ad their trusts, as well as foreign - mostly Chinese and Russian money just parked and waiting so it can't be seized in their home country, so until more people decide to leave and put their houses on the market despite prop 13 benefits supply will stay tight. I walked by a place right next to the presidio that sold for around 10MM and is totally dilapidated and nobody is living in it, e.g. the house is worth zero, so it's just 10 million parked by some foreigner for a normal lot at a nice SF location. Hey but the leftoids have been saying for 20 years they want to make housing affordable. Crooks.
6   mell   2020 Jul 11, 5:06pm  

Also rates are record low and houses have the appeal of being "sheltered" from Covid in your non-shared backyard, vs. Condos who have seen continued price declines. With these rates and absent a deep recession a housing market crash is unlikely yet.
7   rocketjoe79   2020 Jul 11, 5:07pm  

I just got a VA refi to 2.25% with 2.7 points for 30 years. Lowered my payment by $300 a month. Less than 4 year payback.
8   Ceffer   2020 Jul 11, 6:26pm  

Unless there is a radical equity depreciation, those rates mean that they are almost being paid to take out the loan with an interest rate that is lower than inflation.
9   BayArea   2020 Jul 11, 7:06pm  

Hircus says
A friend got 2.5% 30yr fixed a couple weeks ago. Not sure about down payment.


What lender?
10   just_passing_through   2020 Jul 11, 8:38pm  

My dad just refinance one of his rental properties with a VA at 2.5% as well. This past week... He didn't say anything about points or whatnot. I didn't ask. I just drooled over the phone wish I could get that.
11   Eman   2020 Jul 11, 9:12pm  

Bay Area,

Try San Mateo Credit Union. I closed 2 loans with them in late May. A couple of my friends also closed a few loans with them. Great rates. Her name is Jan Regala-Freeman. Her office phone number is 650.817.1997.

First Republic Bank always has good rates, but their LTV tends to be lower.

Good luck.
12   HeadSet   2020 Jul 12, 7:44am  

My dad just refinance one of his rental properties with a VA at 2.5% as well.

One of his "rental properties?" Unless that "rental property" was your dad's former residence that he bought VA while he was living there, refinancing VA is illegal. The loan application for such a streamlined refinance even asks the applicant to certify the home was the primary residence at the time the original VA loan was taken. If you dad just got a new VA loan on rental that had a non-VA existing loan, he would also be breaking the law. He would have to be a veteran himself and would have had to certify that new loan was for his own residence.

True, one can assume a VA loan from a veteran who is selling his/her residence, and the assumer can use that property as a rental, but that VA loan cannot be refinanced VA.

The VA Loan was designed to make it easier veterans to buy and sell their residence houses, since veterans are often transferred. It was not designed to give someone an edge to buy investment properties. I once had a Realtor brag to me about a retired Colonel client of his that was using his VA benefits to but rental houses. The Realtor shut up real quick when he realized I considered such abuse as more crooked than clever.
13   WookieMan   2020 Jul 12, 8:07am  

HeadSet says
Unless that "rental property" was your dad's former residence that he bought VA while he was living there, refinancing VA is illegal.

This. I personally don't care, but it's 100% loan fraud if he's not living at the property. Rentals are inherently more risky to loan on and why they have higher interest rates. As long as he never defaults on it no one will care or probably notice as I highly doubt they have random enforcement or checks to see if the veteran lives there.

Now if he was living there and refi'd and moves the next day, that might be legal. I never really dealt with VA loans, but usually the documents you sign for mortgages have some clause in there that outside of extenuating circumstances you plan to live in the house for a while.

A good friend of mine is doing the buy with VA and move after a while type process. He just sold one of his rentals to a tenant and skipped the 5-6% on commissions. He did well for holding a 2 bed, 1 bath home for 3 years. He just sold his primary and moved to MT. I informed him he's going to have to pay capital gains on one of them and he didn't comprehend or agree. Oh well. His 2020 taxes are going to be an eye opener.... lol.
14   WookieMan   2020 Jul 12, 8:10am  

I just reread what I quoted HeadSet. I don't think you can refi even a former primary residence that was purchased with a VA. If the VA allows that, then I'm joining tomorrow. If you're a veteran you should be making absolute bank with the terms of those loans and the no capital needed to purchase. Sure you'd have to move a lot, but fuck, you could build an empire at low interest rates and no/minimal capital invested.
15   HeadSet   2020 Jul 12, 8:31am  

I don't think you can refi even a former primary residence that was purchased with a VA.

Actually, one can in this case. The logic is that if a veteran was not able to sell when he was transferred, the veteran can rent the home without losing the refi benefit. If he still owns the home years later, he can refinance that home VA.

Sure you'd have to move a lot, but fuck, you could build an empire at low interest rates and no/minimal capital invested.

There is a cap on the total dollar amount you can VA finance, which limits to about one or two homes. Often a veteran has used up his/her VA benefit on the house at the last duty station, and until they sell that last house, they have no VA benefit to buy the next house.

The way to "make bank" is for one to assume VA loans form Veterans who are selling. Do not even need to be a veteran to do that, but unless it is a down market, you are likely to need to "buy equity" from the seller. That is, for example assume a $250k VA loan @ 3.25% on a house selling for $270k by giving the seller $20k cash. I have assumed two VA loans in a down market just by taking over the payments. I rented the houses out for years at a slight cash flow loss, but I was essentially buying those houses for that few bucks a month.
16   WookieMan   2020 Jul 12, 8:49am  

Interesting. Like I said I don't think I've dealt with a single VA loan on over 1k transactions managing my former office, so no experience. Makes sense, just surprised it's allowed. Refi as a non-primary though claiming it as primary is 100% illegal in almost every other case I know of. Learn something new every day.

For some of you out there that dig your heels in here on Patnet. I was wrong. It's not too hard to admit it. It's just the internet.
17   HeadSet   2020 Jul 12, 11:13am  

He just sold his primary and moved to MT. I informed him he's going to have to pay capital gains on one of them and he didn't comprehend or agree. Oh well. His 2020 taxes are going to be an eye opener.... lol.

As you know, as long as he did not make $250k ($500k if married) or more cap gain on his primary house he will not be liable for cap gain tax on it. If he plans to buy another rental in MT, he could have done a Section 1031 like kind exchange with the proceeds of that sold rental property and put it into the new rental property, and deferred cap gain taxes.
18   just_passing_through   2020 Jul 12, 12:01pm  

HeadSet says
Unless that "rental property" was your dad's former residence that he bought VA while he was living there, refinancing VA is illegal.


Indeed, he (they) used to live there. I know the original loan was VA so perhaps this wasn't but I'm pretty sure it was to get that rate.
19   just_passing_through   2020 Jul 12, 7:17pm  

Update: His loan origination fee was .8% or almost equal to 1 point but he didn't pay any points. No, I didn't ask about the rest. Not going to piss off my dad haha.. There are certain things that set him off. Insinuating he broke a law would be one of them. Might have a heart attack.

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