Getting Close!

We signed papers last night!!! The title company rep came over last night, and we spent about an hour signing and initialing papers. We celebrated with Chocolate Mousse Pie! OK, the rep and my wife did, while I drank some seltzer. As for me, well, I'm attempting, with the help of a good friend, the South Beach Diet. So far, I'm on day three, and all is well. Please pray for me it continues to go well and that I lose a deal of weight...

ANYway, we signed papers and handed over a $21,000 down-payment. We thought the down-payment was going to be more, but will the credits and everything, it came out to about $2,400 less than we had anticipated.

Final status on the house. List price: $119,900. Buy price: $116,950. The title company is withholding $2,000 toward roof repair and $200 to pay any final water and sewage bills for which the seller is responsible. The city is withholding $3,500 toward Point of Sale (POS) violations. The seller is paying up to $4,000 in closing costs and points. That means he actually sold the house for $107,450 (is there is anything left from the $200 the title company is withholding to pay leftover water and sewer bills, it goes back to the seller, so those $200 does not get included here). THEN, the seller STILL has to pay the realtors, a total of 7% for the first $100,000 and 5% of anything over that of the actual sale price of $116,950, totaling $7847.50. And yet still more, the title company is withholding $3,712.50 for taxes. On top of that, the seller still had to pay his own closing costs of about $2,500, bringing his total take home to just about $93,400.

Yes, I know MY mortgage is still based on the $116,950 price and that everything came out of there, but the seller DID have to pay all those for all those repairs and fees OUT of HIS OWN proceeds. And there is a good possibility he actually still owes about $108,000 or so on the two mortgages he took out on the house several years ago (one in 1999, one in 2000).

We are scheduled to actually close tomorrow, Wednesday, May 7, 2008 at 4:00 PM. There may be a one day delay because the seller was out of town until today and has one more document to sign and FedEx back to the title company. If he gets it done today and it goes out overnight today, we close tomorrow. Otherwise, we close on Thursday, May 8, 2008. At that point, NO MORE LANDLORD!!! NO MORE FEELING LIKE SOMEONE'S LOWEST OF THE LOW SERF AND SUCKER!!! I can't wait!!

Bottom line: Our mortgage payment is going to be $553.44 per month in mortgage principle and interest, and $364.08 in property taxes, as well as about $70 per month for water and sewer, bringing our total payments to just under $990 per month, which is $180 less than we were paying in rent ($1,170) every month. Further, come December 1, 2008, the county is going to get a request from me to lower the property taxes because what we're currently going to be paying will based on a market value of $145,400. All we have to do is show them what we paid and three comps (comparable houses that sold in the area) for around the same or less. The county, according to the title company rep and a bunch of other people, is usually VERY good about reducing the taxes to reflect on the price paid for the house. This will lower our monthly payments by about another $100 or so per month, hopefully, bringing our monthly payments to less than $900 per month! This is less than we paid for our first apartment in NY ($950 monthly), less than our apartment in LA ($1,250 monthly), less than for the duplex in which we first lived in our current city of residence ($1,000), and less than the rent we paid here ($1,170 monthly). And of all of them, this house is WAY bigger than any of the previous residences (800 sq feet, 850 sq feet, 1410 sq feet for the previous places, respectively, compared to just about 1800 sq feet here WITH room to expand if we decide to stay long term and if we ever have the money to build a master bedroom and bathroom over the family room).

Here's the kicker. We don't live in a slum. We don't live in a crappy neighborhood. Crime here is just about unknown. We live a in really beautiful, VERY QUIET suburb. Unlike NY and LA, where the neighborhoods were nasty, slummy, dirty, crime-ridden, and loud, this is actually a GREAT place to live.

Go find THIS deal in LA!! :) From what I've heard, seen, and read, you MIGHT be able to buy a broken down, really nasty, two bedroom, one bathroom fixer-upper in WATTS for about $200,000. Fixed up? About $375,000. Sad. And yet, people FLOCK to live LALA Land...