All Forum Posts by: Giovanna Miller

Thank you so much Joe! :)

@Joe

@Joe Funari Hi Joe, how are you? Who are you using for PM in that area now? 

Thank you! 

Attend local REIA meetings (local to the place you want to invest in), network, get referrals, interview and ask to check their work and have a strong contract. PMs are also great for referrals. You just need to be patient, detail oriented and diligent because it may take a few tries to get it right.

If I remember correctly, roommate income counts, however the bank will want to see a lease of 6 months or more (check this info). 

Have you considered renting the rooms long-term?

There are many great ETFs and REITs and that is where I like keeping some money for easy access the short-term. For money that I am not going to touch for a long time I invest in a select group of companies from different industries for diversification. I find Barron's newspaper a great reading material for the subject as well as several investors' opinions. Just make sure you do some research on these companies. 

The advantage of buying a property to live in vs an out-of-state rental (for someone who lives in an expensive market like the Bay Area) is that you may be able to put only 3.5% down on a property of higher value, rent out the bedrooms/in-law unit, other side of a duplex, etc. to help cover a good chunk of your mortgage if not 100% of it (depending on many factors). This means, you could possibly save thousands/month vs buying your first property out of state and making only +/- $200/month. Keep in mind that investment properties require 20%-25% down payment. 

Yes, with a partner who funded 100% of the deal. She came in with the money and I put in the work. 

Thank you Paul! I had tried contacting every manager, director, etc. Nothing seemed to work. Anyway, after a lot of fighting and postponing closing, e-mails, etc., they finally corrected the points and gave the credit. We closed yesterday, finally! 

I do have in writing at least the $1600 (by e-mail) and the promise to adjust the points and get us larger amount of credit. However, they are still not updating the disclosure. I really don't know where to go from here. 

Hi, I hope all is well. 

Long post ahead. 

We have worked with Caliber a few times before and never had major issues (except once when processor was really bad at reading e-mails and would reply asking for documents that were attached to the e-mail she was responding to).

Anyway, we started a cash-out refi which was supposed to take only 45 days to close (a bit longer due to the amount of people applying at the time). They neglected our loan when after reaching out to ask for the status, we found out that our loan was closed since they didn't move forward with it. They had to re-open the loan and make adjustments, which delayed the process. Then we were promised a $1600 credit to make up for their mistake and expenses it has caused us. 

Processors then who were supposed to give the first approval after the appraisal, also neglected the process for days and only really pre-approved after we reached out and complained about the delay. 

We exchanged several e-mails and phone calls after that with the processor, the loan consultant and their managers. We were told several times by them "everything looks good, we just need this one document and we can approve/schedule closing", to then hear from them the next day that they needed just one more document. It went on and on. I even asked that if they were not going to move forward, to let me know so I could work with another lender, only to hear "it is being approved right now". Well, this was 11/07. This nightmare kept going. We gave up going to a different lender because it just seemed like dealing with this would be faster. Anyway, we were then promised additional credit for all their mistakes, totaling $2500.

Here is where I feel like they are playing us. We first signed with them at a 2.5% points, so the credits should have been discounted from that amount. A couple days ago they changed the points to 2.875% and today (we were supposed to close) they sent the disclosure in the morning with the discount "sort of" applied from the 2.875%, not the 2.5% that we had agreed on in the beginning of this process.

We had asked them to fix the 2.85% before when we noticed the change, to which they replied they were going to fix it before closing. The way they are applying the credit is giving us only $284 credit, really. I showed it to the loan processor who says she sees the mistake, but that "they are giving us the most credit they can", only problem is that the credit isn't there. We will have to wait until Monday so she tries to resolve it, but she is not sounding very confident. 

What are your thoughts? Am I missing something? I have never gone through such situation with a lender before.