Home "Closing" ?

[SMS]

I've only bought one home in my life, and I was actually out of the country when that happened...my wife had to do it on her own. Ours went fairly smooth...but we had about $1k of unexpected payments. I have two friends who both recently built/closed on new homes and their closings were nightmares.

In one case the final payment at closing was nearly 40% higher than the estimate given the day prior to closing....to the tune of 10's of thousands of dollars.

In the second case, the title company called and said "we are ready to close today" so the folks dropped everything and headed to the office. The title company called them several times during the drive to make sure the buyers were enroute but when they got there the title folks said "oh, sorry it turns out we aren't ready so you can't close today".

We have a vast array of professions on this board, can anyone elaborate why "Closing" seems to be such an inexact science full of surprises?

 

[338Shooter]

I've bought one house. It was a PITA the whole time. Probably has a lot to do with the government regulations. You also get a hand cramp from the 1.21 Jigasignatures that you get to sign. You can buy a $200,000 car in 30 minutes, but a $200,000 house takes a month. WTF.

 

[Hobbes]

I have only bought 2 houses, the most recent was last year.

The closing costs were VERY close to the estimate I was given at the beginning.

It probably has to do with the real estate agent involved and the county the house is built in.
Also, how long since the last sale affects how involved it is to bring the abstract up to date.

 

[BadgeBunny]

Yeah, mine was a nightmare too. Actually had one closing fall through because the underwriters just could not be happy with anything.

On the second house, the called us and said they were ready (for the third time) and then called when we were all on the way there and said "Opps our bad".

However, we had already spoken to the sellers and their agent and both the seller's agent and my real estate agent just told the title company we are on the way down there, you had better be ready. (The guy I bought this house from was 110 years old. Both his family and my agent were terrified he was gonna die before got the deal done.)

We sat at the title company from 4:30 that afternoon until 8 pm that night but I left there with keys in my hand!! Whooo hooo!!!

I will never do it again ... that's GC's job now.

 

[bettingpython]

Your lender has a huge outcome on the quality of your closing, our original purchase was a nightmare in 2006, we made 1/2 a dozen trips from stillwater to tulsa because the lender kept asking for more stuff instead of getting everything whether it was necessary or not up front, but they did one thing right which was have the closing costs almost dead on.

Our refinance was different we went through Oklahoma National Bank... aka Pinnacle mortgage, we made one trip to the bank to take them papers after our initial meeting, had just a couple of phone calls with them and then got called for our closing. I think I had to write a check that was 32 cents higher than what I was quoted at that closing.

 

[AKmoose]

Ours was pretty smooth in 2008. The guy who wants the 2 packs from you Monday just went though 2 months of yes, no, maybe today on his closing, he was pretty frustrated but finally got it done.

 

[vvvvvvv]

Ours wasn't so much the closing, it was the seller kept wanting to change what stayed with the property and what didn't. It wasn't a big deal because we paid only a little bit more than what the land was worth. A lot of the "improvements" weren't considered improvements by multiple appraisers.

 

[ekdkdk1]

just closed on our house a month ago. everything went smooth. we were constantly talking to our bankers to make sure everything was done. before the closing. we walked into the title company. sat down. signed the 20 some forms. walked out. done deal. we were in the office maybe 30 minutes tops. very happy.. but it was the same on our first home also.

 

[ZombieHunter]

Wow sounds like a lot of headaches for overpriced cookie cutter houses, My advice is to go find a dilapidated and falling over house sitting on a decent foundation for under 10k cash, and put the cash into fixing it up yourself over a few years, you would save yourselves damn near 50k in INTEREST alone depending on your rate and down payment, but from personal experience most people only put 10% down and pay more than the house is worth in interest.

Most houses cost the builder around 45$ a square foot, if it is any more than that they are terrible at their sourcing of wholesale fixtures and other components. They are charging you triple what they paid to build the place, then on top of that the bank is getting theirs. Home ownership makes ZERO sense unless you really want to make the banks more money.

The American Dream of owning a home was contingent on people doing the work themselves and building their own homes, the fact of the matter is unless you do that you will probably never own it, your lending institution does, and until that Lien is off the Title you do not own anything.

Closing costs can jump 40% because they do not like the look of your face that morning, chances are that is why it has skyrocketed. They can also base it off of your payment histories with every single vendor you have ever used, miss a power bill payment, that can add a half percent to closing, it is really their own little game of make it up as they go.

 

[Kozmos]

I think it really comes down to the lenders. We use our credit union and have a 20+ year relationship with them. They do an excellent job at closings and stay on top of things along the way. You really have to work with the lenders in this process and make sure you get a detailed closing statement before the closing so you can review and ask any questions before you get there. 3 houses and numerous refi's in 10 years and we've never really had a hitch or surprise.