Radon mitigation isn’t that bad I installed a system last year had about $250 invested in all the parts. The two quotes I got were $600-$800. as long as you don’t have a difficult route out of the house.

We were supposed to close on Friday but the Tax Paperwork from the local company didn't get to the bank on time? It doesn't seem like it's anything we could have prevented, but just stay on top of the entire process.

Hoping to close Monday.

Boc @ 13/7/2018 23:30

vladykins @ 13/7/2018 7:42 Boc @ 12/7/2018 23:11 farlig @ 12/7/2018 20:31 Make sure if you are going to escrow property taxes and insurance ALL the final paperwork indicates that. During my last refinance, one document said I was going to escrow but the controlling document that had my final monthly mortgage payment didn’t actually reflect it. Primate is spot on with the inspection. You’d rather find too much than too little. Happy to answer any more specific questions you may have along the way. ya question: what does this mean :( escrow's just a separate account right? Is there an advantage of using that instead of just paying that stuff off as part of the mortgage payment? also is it normal to have to pay like...10 months of property taxes upfront?? My lender dropped that bomb on me last night. That was so much additional added to the closing costs that I wasn't expecting at all, wtf Unfortunately, it is pretty standard for them to fill up the escrow up front. As farlig said, the escrow account is used by the bank to pay things off for you, but to smooth things out, they try to get a bit of it filled up in advance, because the bank doesn't want to have a negative balance floating there. The key thing is it means you don't have to make separate monthly premium payments or your annual (or semi-annual, depending on the county) property tax payments, since the bank does it automatically- it is automatically incorporated into the monthly payment you make to them. So even though you pay it in your mortgage payment, it means less work you have to deal with on your own, so it works out pretty nicely. Do you have enough money down to avoid PMI? If not, that is still deductible on your taxes (though the higher standard deduction may make that a wash now, depending on your tax situation). If you missed it in my "what do you do for work" poll response, the PMI deductibility was one fo the things my modeling helped make happen. ;) nah I'm only putting 5% down, so I'll have to pay PMI I had my inspection done today and jesus, I never realized just how much goes into this shit. Every inch of the house is a potential liability. But fortunately this house seems p SOLID structurally at least, the biggest thing to come out of it is I'll need radon mitigation

You can dodge around the PMI if you want a piggyback loan, but that is less necessary now that PMI is deductible.

farlig @ 12/7/2018 19:31

Make sure if you are going to escrow property taxes and insurance ALL the final paperwork indicates that. During my last refinance, one document said I was going to escrow but the controlling document that had my final monthly mortgage payment didn’t actually reflect it. Primate is spot on with the inspection. You’d rather find too much than too little. Happy to answer any more specific questions you may have along the way.

Had this happen on a previous house. We had never escrowed before and decided to do it on that house. Talked about it with them every step.of the way. A couple months after we closed, we get a letter from the insurance company threatening to cancel us. I was pissed.

Make sure to stay on top of your agent to stay on top of the seller's agent to actually do all of the work that you demand they do prior to closing. When we bought our house, the seller's agent kept telling ours that it had been done. We moved in to find out that not a single thing on the list they agreed to had been done. It took us 18 months to get it all done and we had to deal with putting up with the work while we lived there, though the sellers did pay for it.

Also, make sure your mortgage company actually stays on top of paying your insurances and taxes our of your escrow. I've had a couple of years where they just dropped the ball. I hate the bank that runs our mortgage, and they even are a local bank.