Dealing with nerves during home buying process!

afoxinautumn

Hi everyone,

All things considered, I think my husband and I are going through a relatively normal home purchasing process right now.  However, I feel like the lack of professionalism displayed by almost everyone we have worked with so far (realtors, mortgage brokers, attorneys, etc.) has left me feeling very discouraged and a bit nervous about the whole thing.  The only people who have really made me feel at ease at all are our home inspector and our attorney's paralegal!

We are just about to start inspections and I guess I am getting "cold feet" despite the sellers being amenable and things generally moving forward normally.  This is just the most money we have ever spent on anything and I expected the "professionals" involved to be well...more professional!

Did anyone else feel this way during the home buying process?  How did you keep moving forward without letting your nerves get to you!? 

SmrBrd2012

Honestly, my experience has been going quite well. Everyone has been pretty professional except for a few minor typos in our written agreements that our attorney and loan officer missed (separate documents...). H and I are pretty laid back though so maybe we are missing the things we should be freaked out about (I hope not! haha).

Can you be more specific about what you are experiencing? 

afoxinautumn

Well, here are a few examples I guess!

1. My realtor has done basically nothing and it bothers me a lot that she's even getting paid at this point (examples: I found the house we are buying and I had to ask her for a few weeks to go see it since she kept overlooking my request, she stopped answering my e-mails promptly weeks ago, etc.).
2. My mortgage broker neglected to tell us what our credit usage should look like during this time period so we almost lost the loan at no fault of our own (we always pay our cards early but we are first time home buyers and didn't know exactly how this works).
   
3. Our attorney missed some important clauses in the contract that only my dad caught because we are lucky and he is a lawyer in a different state.

What it all comes down to is that all of these people seem too busy to focus on us and let us know that our deal is important to them.  Maybe I am being idealistic, but I really expected more out of this process!  The only thing that makes me feel a bit less crazy is that I have a friend in the state over who is having a similar negative experience and just lost a house she really wanted because of it...so something seems off here!

Glad you are having a much better experience!!

SmrBrd2012

That does sound frustrating. I would've probably chose a different realtor if she wasn't easy to reach.

The only thing that is a little frustrating for me is that we don't really have anyone "holding our hands" through the process. We are working with Redfin for our realtor and they are pretty laid back and haven't really been reminding us about when we need to get stuff done by. For example, we need to have our financing approved by 4/30..you know a WEEK from now and we've had no reminders that we need to get this done by them or our attorney. They have a checklist on their website for our specific needs but it would be nice to have a little bit more help. Luckily, we've been able to stay on top of everything.

Good luck with the rest of your home buying process!

afoxinautumn

SmrBrd2012 said:

That does sound frustrating. I would've probably chose a different realtor if she wasn't easy to reach.

The only thing that is a little frustrating for me is that we don't really have anyone "holding our hands" through the process. We are working with Redfin for our realtor and they are pretty laid back and haven't really been reminding us about when we need to get stuff done by. For example, we need to have our financing approved by 4/30..you know a WEEK from now and we've had no reminders that we need to get this done by them or our attorney. They have a checklist on their website for our specific needs but it would be nice to have a little bit more help. Luckily, we've been able to stay on top of everything.

Good luck with the rest of your home buying process!

Actually, this is the fourth realtor I have used!  The others were so bad that I ended up choosing the "best of the worst", haha!

I think some of our experiences sound similar to yours.  It's not that I necessarily expect someone to do all the work for me or hold our hands each step of the way (since we do plenty of our own research), but there is a whole lot that I think we should be well-informed of that realtors, brokers, etc. do not seem to find important.

Guess we have to keep looking our for ourselves!!

short+sassy

It is nerve-wracking, even when things go well.  I should have bought a house years ago, but was just too scared.

The best advice I can give, which it sounds like you are doing, is to educate yourself about the process as much as possible.  I was also an HGTV Property Virgins fanatic while I was looking, lol.  Not really saying the show gives useful info, but it was helpful to see some of the barriers other people were running into.

I also used to picture myself at the closing table, signing my documents.  That was my way to focus on the future goal when getting to that goal had a lot of hurdles.  It was my personal reminder that one day all the frustration would be worth it and I would have my own home.

Now I picture the gorgeous deck coming off my back bedroom that will someday...SOMEDAY...be there, lol.

afoxinautumn

short+sassy said:

It is nerve-wracking, even when things go well.  I should have bought a house years ago, but was just too scared.

The best advice I can give, which it sounds like you are doing, is to educate yourself about the process as much as possible.  I was also an HGTV Property Virgins fanatic while I was looking, lol.  Not really saying the show gives useful info, but it was helpful to see some of the barriers other people were running into.

I also used to picture myself at the closing table, signing my documents.  That was my way to focus on the future goal when getting to that goal had a lot of hurdles.  It was my personal reminder that one day all the frustration would be worth it and I would have my own home.

Now I picture the gorgeous deck coming off my back bedroom that will someday...SOMEDAY...be there, lol.

Thank you for the encouragement!!

ab6704a

My advice is to stay on top of things yourself, triple check everything, and don't trust your realtor, lender, title company, etc. to make sure things get done on time or to be done right.  I'm sure everybody was sick of me by the time we wrapped up but I made darn sure all the closing paperwork was done early and that I checked in with all of them on a regular basis for status.  Surprise surprise, I found a $3k mistake in the closing paperwork that was sent the day before closing that needed to be fixed.  And it did get fixed because I was on top of it as soon as I received it. 

SmrBrd2012

@ab6704a

Just curious...what was the 3k mistake? I'd like to know what to look out for!

ab6704a

@SmrBrd2012 - I'm assuming you're buying in the U.S. and you'll get a HUD -1 statement, otherwise it might not apply....when we got our HUD-1 statement (which is the form that shows all amounts due to and from the seller and buyer at closing) it showed that the sellers were giving us a $3k credit towards closing costs.  In reality our sellers were only supposed to be giving us a $500 credit. The banks had confused our closing statement with my FI's sale of his house happening at the same time where he gave HIS buyer a $3k credit.

If we had trusted the bottom line number on the HUD statement we would have shown up to our closing $2500 short of what we really owed the sellers and the closing would have been postponed, which would have left us homeless for the night because we closed on the sale of my FI's house earlier in the day.

The fact that we were buying and selling the same day made it worse, but regardless, when you finally get your closing statement, which usually only comes a day or two before closing, go through it closely and make sure all the numbers match with what is in your mortgage paperwork and purchase and sales agreement.

 

elaineee55

I completely feel the same way. Both our lender and realtor have been very unprofessional, right down to even how they speak in emails. It always seems like they are in a hurry and like we are annoying them. Our realtor couldn't even remember what we were buying our home for and I had to remind her time and time again. Whenever we came across a hiccup in the process they would put blame on the other. I understand they do this all the time, but we don't. As first time home buyers I expected them to make a little more effort at explaining things and helping ease our nerves and worries. It was not an enjoyable experience at all and I warn all my friends to make sure and go through many different realtors and lenders before choosing "the ones".

Bubblegum5586

We had some ups and downs during our process (mostly issue with the appraisal being low) but what gave me the confidence was how fantastic our team was. I mentioned to my mortgage broker how it all seemed almost easy compared to things I have heard. He said if you have a great mortgage broker, lawyer and realtor and the buyer get's everything in on time it can actually be quite easy!

On the money side I got quite nervous over it too. I remember for years watching house hunters and seeing the couple get nervous about spending all that money and I would think "yea but it's just a monthly payment" but when my time came, yea I was nervous too!

2 things that made me feel a lot better was;

1-In the past 4 years we had spent over $50,000 in rent!!! Paying for where you live is just a necessity of life so I don't regret that we HAD to spend that money. But it was really eye opening to add it up and realize how we much rather be putting that money towards an investment (granted with a mortgage it's not like I'll have $50,000 paid off in 4 years with interest and such but still!).

2-Rent will continue to go up in general and ours was going up every year between $25-$50 each time. We wanted more space anyways so to rent a bigger space would then be more money! I am now locked into a price that will actually GO DOWN (9 years I'll be at 20% and my PMI will drop saving me almost $200 a month! - hopefully we can pay it down a little faster and reach that before 9 years!

But back to your team... there's a paid professionals you should be able to rely on, I really can't imagine working with people that make mistakes or are MIA. I emailed someone on my team almost once a day with a question. They always got back within a few hours if not minutes. It sounds like you are well throug the process so it's too late to switch out, so do your best to educate yourself and stay on top of everything!

GOOD LUCK!!!!