Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Pre-drywall meeting and rate lock question

We had our predrywall meeting yesterday (12/20) - it took about 1.5 hours, and I went through the whole house with the Project Supervisor. Learned a lot about the house - he showed me what every cord was for, whole they sealed the house, and gave me a timeline of things to come. Everything looks good - a couple issues and new things I learned below.

I didn't take a single picture during the meeting - I was too busy listening to everything else. It was so interesting to learn everything about the house. We never planned on building, but this location/price point was something we couldn't pass up. So glad we did this experience because of everything I am learning about how the house is built and set up.

3rd party inspection - 1/25 3pm
Demonstration - 1/27 8am
Closing day - 1/31 - 1pm walkthrough and 2pm closing

I wish the closing day was a few days earlier, but we will deal with it. Looks like we will be moving on Super Bowl weekend - and the Super Bowl is in town this year (we live in a suburb of Indy). So that could be an interesting weekend. Plus, I'm a CPA, so January is bad for me - we were aiming to close before Christmas (so I am JEALOUS of those of you closing soon), but due to the backup with the permits and the sale of our house, we were pushed back. Oh well, we will be so glad to be in our new house.

New things I learned and issues:
-House comes with a dehumidifier. I knew the house didn't come with a battery back up sump pump (and I am planning to get one right after closing). I figured I'd buy a dehumidifier too at that point, so that was a nice bonus
-There was one switch plug (aka half hot) in the family room - and it controls the outlet where the TV will be plugged in. PM said that was a very strange place in the room for the switch plug. It will be moved to the wall where the furniture will be per PM
-The full bathroom in the basement has a lower ceiling (think the height of the bulkheads in the basements). That's unfortunate but unavoidable with the framing of the house and location of the supports.
-The location of the HVAC and water heater are unfortunate but can't be moved. They are both set up across from each other in the unfinished area of the basement, and basically form a little blockage to the storage area. You can get through between the two, but it is a little tight. Disappointed by this.

Any tips on rate lock? Or maybe put in the comments what rate you got - I am curious what others got recently. Something below 4 would get me really excited for 30 yr fixed. Does anybody take a gamble and just wait and see how the rate changes every day? My mortgage rep emailed me yesterday and say she'd call me mid-morning today about locking the rate.



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3 comments:

  1. I don't mind yapping about mine. We locked in at 4% last week. We had the opportunity to lock in at 3.875% but would require to "buy the rate down" at a cost of about $2000 at closing. If data and research proves correct that 80+% of people refinance in the first 5 years, then I made a great choice. Ask me in 6 years.

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  2. We got 3.75% but could lower to 3.5% if we also "buy the rate down". We chose not to. Ours is 30 yr FHA fixed. The other option was a 5/1 ARM at 2.??%, but I would rather not HAVE to refinance in the future just in case the rates go up again.

    Sounds like you had a good walkthough. I wish the half-hots were something our PM had talked to us about because there are several that I don't agree with. Oh well.

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  3. I wish they didn't do the things at all. We had all five of the upstairs bedrooms wired for ceiling lights, so we don't require a switch to turn off any of the outlets. I'm going to ask our PM to kill those.

    We locked in just yesterday at 3.75%. We are also on a 30 year fixed FHA.

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