OFFICIAL - Buying / Selling / Moving Thread (2 Viewers)

[urbanhack]

Crap. I talked to my credit union, and while they do HELOCs, they have a maximum of $250k. That's not going to do it for the "buy using my HELOC and cash on hand" scenario. Does this seem unusual? When I did it before using a local bank, there wasn't a cap (or at least not one that I was borrowing enough to hit). I'm not sure where to go from here.

Where are you looking to live back in Chicago?? which hood?

 

[krista4]

Crap. I talked to my credit union, and while they do HELOCs, they have a maximum of $250k. That's not going to do it for the "buy using my HELOC and cash on hand" scenario. Does this seem unusual? When I did it before using a local bank, there wasn't a cap (or at least not one that I was borrowing enough to hit). I'm not sure where to go from here.

Where are you looking to live back in Chicago?? which hood?

I find myself tending toward my old neighborhood or those adjacent - Wicker Park, Ukrainian Village, Logan Square, etc. - and also could do West Loop or West Town. I'd be open to places like Lincoln Square or Andersonville, but my mom would likely have a hard time finding a place to meet their needs up there, and if they end up in the Loop, Gold Coast, Streeterville-type area, I don't want to be so far away. There are actually some good possibilities for them in the Wicker Park/UK Village area, too.

 

[Chadstroma]

Crap. I talked to my credit union, and while they do HELOCs, they have a maximum of $250k. That's not going to do it for the "buy using my HELOC and cash on hand" scenario. Does this seem unusual? When I did it before using a local bank, there wasn't a cap (or at least not one that I was borrowing enough to hit). I'm not sure where to go from here.

ETA: Nevermind, I've been researching others and see various caps. My credit union one is just very low. Going to have to find someone else to use.

Yea, there are other options and like I said before, all else fails with thr CU/banks, I likely have a solution.

Smaller CU's will have caps like that... larger ones and community banks should be good to go though.

 

[krista4]

Crap. I talked to my credit union, and while they do HELOCs, they have a maximum of $250k. That's not going to do it for the "buy using my HELOC and cash on hand" scenario. Does this seem unusual? When I did it before using a local bank, there wasn't a cap (or at least not one that I was borrowing enough to hit). I'm not sure where to go from here.

ETA: Nevermind, I've been researching others and see various caps. My credit union one is just very low. Going to have to find someone else to use.

Yea, there are other options and like I said before, all else fails with thr CU/banks, I likely have a solution.

Smaller CU's will have caps like that... larger ones and community banks should be good to go though.

I've had a rough time today finding a local that works for everything I want. But then I convinced myself that this is stupid and I should not be putting this in place right now. Chicago market is not hot like it is here, and things aren't going to go crazy in nine months. I need to wait and just deal with it later anyway. NO BUYING A HOUSE IN THE NEXT FOUR WEEKS.

 

[Chadstroma]

Crap. I talked to my credit union, and while they do HELOCs, they have a maximum of $250k. That's not going to do it for the "buy using my HELOC and cash on hand" scenario. Does this seem unusual? When I did it before using a local bank, there wasn't a cap (or at least not one that I was borrowing enough to hit). I'm not sure where to go from here.

ETA: Nevermind, I've been researching others and see various caps. My credit union one is just very low. Going to have to find someone else to use.

Yea, there are other options and like I said before, all else fails with thr CU/banks, I likely have a solution.

Smaller CU's will have caps like that... larger ones and community banks should be good to go though.

I've had a rough time today finding a local that works for everything I want. But then I convinced myself that this is stupid and I should not be putting this in place right now. Chicago market is not hot like it is here, and things aren't going to go crazy in nine months. I need to wait and just deal with it later anyway. NO BUYING A HOUSE IN THE NEXT FOUR WEEKS.

Yea... remember to breathe

 

[Mrs. Rannous]

Crap. I talked to my credit union, and while they do HELOCs, they have a maximum of $250k. That's not going to do it for the "buy using my HELOC and cash on hand" scenario. Does this seem unusual? When I did it before using a local bank, there wasn't a cap (or at least not one that I was borrowing enough to hit). I'm not sure where to go from here.

ETA: Nevermind, I've been researching others and see various caps. My credit union one is just very low. Going to have to find someone else to use.

Yea, there are other options and like I said before, all else fails with thr CU/banks, I likely have a solution.

Smaller CU's will have caps like that... larger ones and community banks should be good to go though.

I've had a rough time today finding a local that works for everything I want. But then I convinced myself that this is stupid and I should not be putting this in place right now. Chicago market is not hot like it is here, and things aren't going to go crazy in nine months. I need to wait and just deal with it later anyway. NO BUYING A HOUSE IN THE NEXT FOUR WEEKS.

Yea... remember to breathe

Look! It's Mister Miyagi!

 

[[icon]]

NO BUYING A HOUSE IN THE NEXT FOUR WEEKS.

I don’t believe you

 

[Chadstroma]

Update: Last weekend I went over to the estate sale to see the house. The master bedroom, bathrooms and basement were closed off during the estate sale. The bedrooms, family, dining, living, and kitchen areas were all as described by the realtor which is summed up by saying "in good condition but dated decor". I am assuming this will be the case for the bathrooms. My wife was not able to get over there during the estate sale with a busy weekend we had. We are set to see the house at 4pm today with the listing realtor. I believe, assuming a surprise from my wife or some drastic thing we see in the master bedroom, bathrooms or basement we will put an offer in.

My FIL apparently does not want to do give the cash and then us doing delayed financing so I am looking at us qualifying to hold both properties (I think we should be able to from eyeballing it) but my wife is not a very good customer as her credit is frozen and she has not responded to my efforts to communicate with her.

 

[Chadstroma]

Update: Last weekend I went over to the estate sale to see the house. The master bedroom, bathrooms and basement were closed off during the estate sale. The bedrooms, family, dining, living, and kitchen areas were all as described by the realtor which is summed up by saying "in good condition but dated decor". I am assuming this will be the case for the bathrooms. My wife was not able to get over there during the estate sale with a busy weekend we had. We are set to see the house at 4pm today with the listing realtor. I believe, assuming a surprise from my wife or some drastic thing we see in the master bedroom, bathrooms or basement we will put an offer in.

My FIL apparently does not want to do give the cash and then us doing delayed financing so I am looking at us qualifying to hold both properties (I think we should be able to from eyeballing it) but my wife is not a very good customer as her credit is frozen and she has not responded to my efforts to communicate with her.

My wife keeps throwing curve balls at me on this. I don't speak to her Dad about financial matters... not as a rule but just something that unless he approaches me, I am not going to approach him. So, she adds more info or isn't sure about something or doesn't know if she wants to do it this way.... etc. I have an offer typed up and waiting on her.

At the same time yesterday, I had a loan file that was stressing me out. The one thing that really is hard for me in this industry is I feel like I care more than others might. To make a long story short, my client had $16K in earnest money on the line and spent $4K in various aspects of the purchase (it is a 12 unit building). If we did not close today, they would lose the $16K and the $4K would have been for nothing.

I was stressed last night and my wife is like "You know, it is ok if we don't get it. If it is meant to be, it is meant to be." and I was like "I am not stressing about us buying this home, I am stressing about my clients loan!"

I am overjoyed to report that the docs are out and the client is wiring their funds on their way to their closing.

Now, to hear back from one of the worst clients ever.... my wife.

 

[[icon]]

Update: Last weekend I went over to the estate sale to see the house. The master bedroom, bathrooms and basement were closed off during the estate sale. The bedrooms, family, dining, living, and kitchen areas were all as described by the realtor which is summed up by saying "in good condition but dated decor". I am assuming this will be the case for the bathrooms. My wife was not able to get over there during the estate sale with a busy weekend we had. We are set to see the house at 4pm today with the listing realtor. I believe, assuming a surprise from my wife or some drastic thing we see in the master bedroom, bathrooms or basement we will put an offer in.

My FIL apparently does not want to do give the cash and then us doing delayed financing so I am looking at us qualifying to hold both properties (I think we should be able to from eyeballing it) but my wife is not a very good customer as her credit is frozen and she has not responded to my efforts to communicate with her.

My wife keeps throwing curve balls at me on this. I don't speak to her Dad about financial matters... not as a rule but just something that unless he approaches me, I am not going to approach him. So, she adds more info or isn't sure about something or doesn't know if she wants to do it this way.... etc. I have an offer typed up and waiting on her.

At the same time yesterday, I had a loan file that was stressing me out. The one thing that really is hard for me in this industry is I feel like I care more than others might. To make a long story short, my client had $16K in earnest money on the line and spent $4K in various aspects of the purchase (it is a 12 unit building). If we did not close today, they would lose the $16K and the $4K would have been for nothing.

I was stressed last night and my wife is like "You know, it is ok if we don't get it. If it is meant to be, it is meant to be." and I was like "I am not stressing about us buying this home, I am stressing about my clients loan!"

I am overjoyed to report that the docs are out and the client is wiring their funds on their way to their closing.

Now, to hear back from one of the worst clients ever.... my wife.

Congrats on getting the deal closed. Following for updates on your saga!

 

[Chadstroma]

I put an offer in last night.

They already accepted an offer yesterday.

We will be in a backup position if something falls through with the property but I wouldn't expect that at all. It is fine. It would have worked out really well in a number of ways but at the same time, we were not looking and that means I keep my current mortgage rate.

 

[Chadstroma]

Dammit.... it gave me the itch.

I looked on Redfin for houses for sale in that neighborhood.

 

[krista4]

NO BUYING A HOUSE IN THE NEXT FOUR WEEKS.

 

[Chadstroma]

NO BUYING A HOUSE IN THE NEXT FOUR WEEKS.

Is there an update here that maybe someone should know about?

 

[ChiefD]

So, we closed today on our house in Wisconsin. I've been waiting to give details until that point, but here we are.

First off, I want to thank @Chadstroma . He spent a phone conversation with me going over a lot of information regarding mortgages and rates and costs and everything. Extremely, extremely nice human being. Answered every question and was very easy to talk to - like we had been friends for years. We even got through the whole Raiders/Chiefs thing with a lot of laughs. Ultimately, we decided to go with a local credit union in the town where we will be living.

This town is small - less than 8800 people. So we decided that we wanted to establish some roots there from a banking standpoint and just from a "let's do business with a local agent" scenario. That was really the only reason we did not choose Chadstroma. But I can honestly tell everyone here he was a professional through and through, and would recommend him to anyone here.

So, to tie things up in Kansas City, we closed on that house in early May, and the new homeowners were kind enough to let us stay in the house until this next week when the kids are done with school. We ended up with 19 offers and ended up with about 55K over asking. A windfall we didn't expect but which gave us enough funds to get what we really wanted: either lakefront or land.

We ended up with land. About three years ago my wife and I came up here to poke around so she could see the area. We hooked up with a local agent and she was kind enough to show us a couple of houses even thought we weren't quite ready yet. Fast forward to now and I reached out to her in the fall of 23 giving her a heads up that we were coming and we would like to use her as our agent. We kept in touch all winter and spring as our dates started to firm up. Lucky for me I found a job quickly and moved up here about a month ago and started work. I commute an hour each way every day from my uncles house, and we were bracing for a long house quest.

The market as also competitive as hell up here, and lakefront is getting really expensive unless you want a dump that needs a ton of work. About a week before I came up, she texted me that she had a place that she was listing in about 10 days, and the owners agreed to let me in to see it before we hit the market. It had some land and some outbuildings and sounded pretty good. So I was like "oh hell yeah."

Head over there, and its amazing:

4BR
2BA
8 Acres - 50% timber and 50% grassland
Two Outbuildings: one is 65' x 30', and the other is 20' x 45'. The big shop has a pellet stove in it.

House is completely finished - comes with all appliances including washer and dryer. All of the good stuff is on the main floor so we can retire comfortably here. Hardwood floors throughout. Pellet fireplace in the living room. Nice big deck. The house faces west for beautiful sunsets. And it's in the middle of nowhere. About 22 minutes from work and the school the kids will go to. I won't have to lift a paint brush in this house. A massive relief after remodeling every house I've ever lived in.

I love it here. Back to KC tomorrow to load up the house and family will come up next weekend. Onward and upward.

 

[krista4]

Well...we came to Chicago for five nights to show my mom and her husband around some neighborhoods and get a feel for what they might like when we move next year.

We arrived Tuesday.

By Wednesday I had made an offer on a place that was accepted.

By Thursday my Mom had made an offer, which was accepted today.

Sooooo much

I have to echo every amazing thing that's ever been said about @Chadstroma and his team. I put in to get a pre-approval with him before we left, just in case, and he was amazing. But even more impressive was that my mom had not done one, so when we had to scramble to get one yesterday, he and his team turned it around in a matter of a few hours, including having to be creative and discuss options. It was incredible. He was doing all of this while taking his son to appointments, to soccer practice, etc. Truly a superman.

Anyway, now we're moving in July.

 

[ChiefD]

I will add - within about a ten minute radius of our house is about 50 lakes or more. We truly get the best of both worlds. World class fishing all around us and there is nothing but county forest all around us.

 

[Mrs. Rannous]

NO BUYING A HOUSE IN THE NEXT FOUR WEEKS.

What did you do?

Never mind. I see you took the nuclear option.

 

[Chadstroma]

@ChiefD and @krista4, thank you for the very kind words! I will be requesting Google reviews soon enough!

I do work hard to deliver great value to clients and even potential clients so it is always nice for that to be validated.

Much appreciated!

 

[krista4]

Sigh.

How are you selecting movers? It's been such a freaking hassle. As you all know , I move frequently, but since 2013 it's been local-ish. A cross-country move is ridiculous. We first got quotes from the mover we've used locally over the past several years. In their defense, they did tell us they would be more expensive than others. But nearly $40k?!?! It's two households, but we're each only taking about half our stuff, and my mom's house is small (1450 sq ft). Wtaf? This wasn't even for "expedited" service but just an estimate that we'd get our stuff in about two weeks.

So then we went to one that, instead of sending someone to estimate, had us fill out forms with all our inventory. How the hell am I supposed to know how many boxes I'll have? They did an estimate but I have no idea if it is going to be accurate.

We have a third one engaged now, but this is getting ridiculous. I've been a lawyer for 30+ years and can't even make heads or tails of their contracts and what is or is not included.

 

[krista4]

Now we're thinking of doing a trip in July with all the stuff we could move ourselves, in a Ryder or U-Haul or whatever. Then just having the movers take big stuff (couches, mattresses) later. But, given we will also be driving across the country with six cats in an RV in August (which might need to be its own thread), I'm not really keen on a second trip where I have to drive some large vehicle.

 

[ChiefD]

Now we're thinking of doing a trip in July with all the stuff we could move ourselves, in a Ryder or U-Haul or whatever. Then just having the movers take big stuff (couches, mattresses) later. But, given we will also be driving across the country with six cats in an RV in August (which might need to be its own thread), I'm not really keen on a second trip where I have to drive some large vehicle.

You may look at PODS. I couldn’t use them because they don’t deliver way up here.

 

[krista4]

Now we're thinking of doing a trip in July with all the stuff we could move ourselves, in a Ryder or U-Haul or whatever. Then just having the movers take big stuff (couches, mattresses) later. But, given we will also be driving across the country with six cats in an RV in August (which might need to be its own thread), I'm not really keen on a second trip where I have to drive some large vehicle.

You may look at PODS. I couldn’t use them because they don’t deliver way up here.

Thanks! We did think of that but then weren’t sure where to put a POD in the middle of Chicago. This is a good reminder that we should at least check it out.

 

[Peggy]

Sigh.

How are you selecting movers? It's been such a freaking hassle. As you all know , I move frequently, but since 2013 it's been local-ish. A cross-country move is ridiculous. We first got quotes from the mover we've used locally over the past several years. In their defense, they did tell us they would be more expensive than others. But nearly $40k?!?! It's two households, but we're each only taking about half our stuff, and my mom's house is small (1450 sq ft). Wtaf? This wasn't even for "expedited" service but just an estimate that we'd get our stuff in about two weeks.

So then we went to one that, instead of sending someone to estimate, had us fill out forms with all our inventory. How the hell am I supposed to know how many boxes I'll have? They did an estimate but I have no idea if it is going to be accurate.

We have a third one engaged now, but this is getting ridiculous. I've been a lawyer for 30+ years and can't even make heads or tails of their contracts and what is or is not included.

Thanks, please keep us updated. I've pushed our house hunting trip out until the end of September. Dreading having to pay a bunch for movers.

 

[Chadstroma]

Now we're thinking of doing a trip in July with all the stuff we could move ourselves, in a Ryder or U-Haul or whatever. Then just having the movers take big stuff (couches, mattresses) later. But, given we will also be driving across the country with six cats in an RV in August (which might need to be its own thread), I'm not really keen on a second trip where I have to drive some large vehicle.

Here you go.... RV with a trailer and then a UHaul with a trailer... one drives the RV and the other the UHaul. Half way across the country. The possibility of losing my sanity would be worth the $35K in savings to me.

 

[Chadstroma]

Now we're thinking of doing a trip in July with all the stuff we could move ourselves, in a Ryder or U-Haul or whatever. Then just having the movers take big stuff (couches, mattresses) later. But, given we will also be driving across the country with six cats in an RV in August (which might need to be its own thread), I'm not really keen on a second trip where I have to drive some large vehicle.

You may look at PODS. I couldn’t use them because they don’t deliver way up here.

Thanks! We did think of that but then weren’t sure where to put a POD in the middle of Chicago. This is a good reminder that we should at least check it out.

Knowing where you are moving.... this made me laugh trying to envision a POD container being dropped off at the front door of the building.

Maybe they can bring it to like a staging area? But then you would have to figure out how to get it from that place to the condo which might not make it worth it.

 

[krista4]

Now we're thinking of doing a trip in July with all the stuff we could move ourselves, in a Ryder or U-Haul or whatever. Then just having the movers take big stuff (couches, mattresses) later. But, given we will also be driving across the country with six cats in an RV in August (which might need to be its own thread), I'm not really keen on a second trip where I have to drive some large vehicle.

You may look at PODS. I couldn’t use them because they don’t deliver way up here.

Thanks! We did think of that but then weren’t sure where to put a POD in the middle of Chicago. This is a good reminder that we should at least check it out.

Knowing where you are moving.... this made me laugh trying to envision a POD container being dropped off at the front door of the building.

Maybe they can bring it to like a staging area? But then you would have to figure out how to get it from that place to the condo which might not make it worth it.

Yeah, don't think it will be doable, unfortunately. Maybe they could put it on my rooftop?

 

[Chadstroma]

Now we're thinking of doing a trip in July with all the stuff we could move ourselves, in a Ryder or U-Haul or whatever. Then just having the movers take big stuff (couches, mattresses) later. But, given we will also be driving across the country with six cats in an RV in August (which might need to be its own thread), I'm not really keen on a second trip where I have to drive some large vehicle.

You may look at PODS. I couldn’t use them because they don’t deliver way up here.

Thanks! We did think of that but then weren’t sure where to put a POD in the middle of Chicago. This is a good reminder that we should at least check it out.

Knowing where you are moving.... this made me laugh trying to envision a POD container being dropped off at the front door of the building.

Maybe they can bring it to like a staging area? But then you would have to figure out how to get it from that place to the condo which might not make it worth it.

Yeah, don't think it will be doable, unfortunately. Maybe they could put it on my rooftop?

Yea, helo lift it in.... maybe a crane?

 

[WVU Alum]

40k? **** that! I’d sell all my **** and use the 40k to replace what I actually need.

 

[belljr]

Now we're thinking of doing a trip in July with all the stuff we could move ourselves, in a Ryder or U-Haul or whatever. Then just having the movers take big stuff (couches, mattresses) later. But, given we will also be driving across the country with six cats in an RV in August (which might need to be its own thread), I'm not really keen on a second trip where I have to drive some large vehicle.

Not sure if this helps but when my dad sold his house in Florida he hired a couple guys to load the truck. We drove the truck to NJ which absolutely sucked btw.

He then hired a couple guys to unload in NJ.

I think he got info from the Hertz people

 

[krista4]

Yea, helo lift it in.... maybe a crane?

The first condo I bought in Chicago also had a private roof deck, and I actually did hire people who used some sort of ridiculous pulley system to get furniture up there for me. Oh to be young and dumb again, instead of just dumb.

40k? **** that! I’d sell all my **** and use the 40k to replace what I actually need.

Mr. krista proposed exactly the same thing! Or actually, what he said was, "Let's just torch all this stuff and start over in Chicago."

Not sure if this helps but when my dad sold his house in Florida he hired a couple guys to load the truck. We drove the truck to NJ which absolutely sucked btw.

He then hired a couple guys to unload in NJ.

I think he got info from the Hertz people

The people I bought my current house from did this, though they were just going down to California so not quite as far. It's a possibility. I just thought at this stage in my life I could have someone else do things for me. But nooooooo.

We have yet a fourth mover we're going to talk with, recommended by our realtor out here who used them to move her mom from NJ to WA.

 

[nightmare]

Now we're thinking of doing a trip in July with all the stuff we could move ourselves, in a Ryder or U-Haul or whatever. Then just having the movers take big stuff (couches, mattresses) later. But, given we will also be driving across the country with six cats in an RV in August (which might need to be its own thread), I'm not really keen on a second trip where I have to drive some large vehicle.

Pick out all the stuff you NEED. The rest of it?-Estate sale.

 

[belljr]

Yea, helo lift it in.... maybe a crane?

The first condo I bought in Chicago also had a private roof deck, and I actually did hire people who used some sort of ridiculous pulley system to get furniture up there for me. Oh to be young and dumb again, instead of just dumb.

40k? **** that! I’d sell all my **** and use the 40k to replace what I actually need.

Mr. krista proposed exactly the same thing! Or actually, what he said was, "Let's just torch all this stuff and start over in Chicago."

Not sure if this helps but when my dad sold his house in Florida he hired a couple guys to load the truck. We drove the truck to NJ which absolutely sucked btw.

He then hired a couple guys to unload in NJ.

I think he got info from the Hertz people

The people I bought my current house from did this, though they were just going down to California so not quite as far. It's a possibility. I just thought at this stage in my life I could have someone else do things for me. But nooooooo.

We have yet a fourth mover we're going to talk with, recommended by our realtor out here who used them to move her mom from NJ to WA.

Honestly, at this rate I think the best play is just to set yourself on fire and call it a day

 

[belljr]

Lol. That was supposed to be your stuff

 

[Drunken knight]

@ChiefD and @krista4, thank you for the very kind words! I will be requesting Google reviews soon enough!

I do work hard to deliver great value to clients and even potential clients so it is always nice for that to be validated.

Much appreciated!

** Bookmarked **

 

[krista4]

Lol. That was supposed to be your stuff

I was totally OK with it the way you wrote it, at this point!

I just got back from my mom's neighborhood garage sale. They decided to try to sell some stuff since it was going on anyway, and it went well for them as they made about $2000 (@Chadstroma , note this for their loan approval ). I took some of our stuff over and sold about $450, but here's a little pro tip...do NOT work your parents' garage sale, if they're elderly, because guess who spends the whole time moving all the heavy things and loading them into cars? That would be me, krista "muscles" 4. (Note, I do not have muscles.) I feel like I'm gonna die, and all the money goes to them!

 

[krista4]

Now we're thinking of doing a trip in July with all the stuff we could move ourselves, in a Ryder or U-Haul or whatever. Then just having the movers take big stuff (couches, mattresses) later. But, given we will also be driving across the country with six cats in an RV in August (which might need to be its own thread), I'm not really keen on a second trip where I have to drive some large vehicle.

Pick out all the stuff you NEED. The rest of it?-Estate sale.

I should just put a price tag on everything, including Mr. krista, and open the doors.

 

[STEADYMOBBIN 22]

So, we closed today on our house in Wisconsin. I've been waiting to give details until that point, but here we are.

First off, I want to thank @Chadstroma . He spent a phone conversation with me going over a lot of information regarding mortgages and rates and costs and everything. Extremely, extremely nice human being. Answered every question and was very easy to talk to - like we had been friends for years. We even got through the whole Raiders/Chiefs thing with a lot of laughs. Ultimately, we decided to go with a local credit union in the town where we will be living.

This town is small - less than 8800 people. So we decided that we wanted to establish some roots there from a banking standpoint and just from a "let's do business with a local agent" scenario. That was really the only reason we did not choose Chadstroma. But I can honestly tell everyone here he was a professional through and through, and would recommend him to anyone here.

So, to tie things up in Kansas City, we closed on that house in early May, and the new homeowners were kind enough to let us stay in the house until this next week when the kids are done with school. We ended up with 19 offers and ended up with about 55K over asking. A windfall we didn't expect but which gave us enough funds to get what we really wanted: either lakefront or land.

We ended up with land. About three years ago my wife and I came up here to poke around so she could see the area. We hooked up with a local agent and she was kind enough to show us a couple of houses even thought we weren't quite ready yet. Fast forward to now and I reached out to her in the fall of 23 giving her a heads up that we were coming and we would like to use her as our agent. We kept in touch all winter and spring as our dates started to firm up. Lucky for me I found a job quickly and moved up here about a month ago and started work. I commute an hour each way every day from my uncles house, and we were bracing for a long house quest.

The market as also competitive as hell up here, and lakefront is getting really expensive unless you want a dump that needs a ton of work. About a week before I came up, she texted me that she had a place that she was listing in about 10 days, and the owners agreed to let me in to see it before we hit the market. It had some land and some outbuildings and sounded pretty good. So I was like "oh hell yeah."

Head over there, and its amazing:

4BR
2BA
8 Acres - 50% timber and 50% grassland
Two Outbuildings: one is 65' x 30', and the other is 20' x 45'. The big shop has a pellet stove in it.

House is completely finished - comes with all appliances including washer and dryer. All of the good stuff is on the main floor so we can retire comfortably here. Hardwood floors throughout. Pellet fireplace in the living room. Nice big deck. The house faces west for beautiful sunsets. And it's in the middle of nowhere. About 22 minutes from work and the school the kids will go to. I won't have to lift a paint brush in this house. A massive relief after remodeling every house I've ever lived in.

I love it here. Back to KC tomorrow to load up the house and family will come up next weekend. Onward and upward.

Super late but CONGRATS!!!!! Looking forward to seeing how many shovels can fit in those outbuildings!!!

 

[Chadstroma]

So..... doing my marathon "Daddy Taxi" today of picking up, dropping off, picking up, dropping off (you get the idea). I went to pick up my niece to drop her and my daughter off at a thing that they were going to. This is my niece that lives near my inlaws. Drove by my inlaws and saw that the realtor sign on the house across the street was taken down which means they closed... so no chance of getting that house. My kids were like "kick them out of our house!" I said.... well, it wasn't meant to be. God has a reason.

A little later, I was taking my niece home. I drive by a house on a street a little over a 5 min walk from my inlaws with a sign on it. It is a larger, nicer home with a full finished basement (the other one has a full but unfinished basement). It is actually listed with less price per sqft than that original house.

I sent it over to my wife. She looked at it and said "that is a little out of our price range" and then a couple minutes later followed with "but I will see if Dad wants to buy it" meaning, if he wants us to buy it he can make it happen. If he doesn't then no worries. Not across the street but super close still and significantly an 'upgrade' of a home with from what I can tell no need to remodel/update where as the other house would need a good amount of updating.

So..... I guess we may end up back in the hunt again.

 

[Peggy]

@Chadstroma

Got pre-approved by BOA today in about 30 minutes over the phone. 500K to 1MM. If I just purchase and carry a mortgage on a new home for a few months while I sell our current home with 20% down the 30-year rate is 6.75%. A line of credit for that much would be 9.935% variable and 10.261% fixed.

That jive with current market conditions? I don't see any reason/advantage for not just getting a mortgage.

 

[Chadstroma]

@Chadstroma

Got pre-approved by BOA today in about 30 minutes over the phone. 500K to 1MM. If I just purchase and carry a mortgage on a new home for a few months while I sell our current home with 20% down the 30-year rate is 6.75%. A line of credit for that much would be 9.935% variable and 10.261% fixed.

That jive with current market conditions? I don't see any reason/advantage for not just getting a mortgage.

It is really impossible to answer that honestly in any way that isn't pure sales pitch. Here is why I say that...

Mortgage rates are not the same for everyone. There are a number of factors that feed into what rate/cost a loan may be at. Things like credit score, location, type of home, type of loan, LTV, DTI, loan size, and more can or do impact the rate/cost of a loan. It is why I hate hearing the question "Where are rates at?" when someone finds out I am a mortgage broker in real life (I do make it a point to let people know though so half of that is on me ) and the reason is I can either give a really vague answer or I can go into a dissertation on how there are a lot of variables in a loan and no one wants to hear that (I am sure you are not thrilled to read it either). Further, I am not fully understanding your scenario as you laid out there.

Also, if you notice above, I wrote rate/cost because rate is the thing most people focus on but it isn't the only factor to the cost of the mortgage. So, there are a lot of ways lenders try to make their loans look good or competitive and in truth with the full picture, they are not.

I can offer two things... one, you can do an application with me, I can do a soft credit pull and then price out the specifics for you or two, you can move forward with BOA and when you are under contract you will get a Loan Estimate. You can send that Loan Estimate to me (there is no sensitive information on LE's and they are meant to help you shop your loan), that and usually you telling me the credit score they used for it- I can tell you if it is a good deal and you can move forward with them or that I could save you X money and you can decide to switch.

I will say this about the big banks. They are usually horrible at mortgages. It is very rare for me to have been beat out on pricing for conventional, VA, FHA or USDA from a bank in general and almost never from a big bank. They also tend to not be very good at their jobs (though there are certainly many exceptions). I have done more than a couple of mortgages for mortgage loan officers at big banks including BofA. For the first few I did, I started out talking to them like I would with someone in the industry and made some assumptions that they knew some of the most basic things about mortgages.... to find out they didn't.... so I started talking to them like I would a first time homebuyer because that was honestly the level of their understanding of mortgages (which blew my mind). For pricing, banks tend to look at it like "We are BofA" or "We are Chase" or whatever.... "so, of course people will want to do their loans with us." when I worked for big banks, I would have people come in all the time wanting to do loans with us and they would say something like "you have all my information so it should be easier with you." or some other assumption..... me being the horrible salesperson that I am, I would correct them but then happily take their application (after all, that was my job). Now, with that all said, the one area that big banks will be aggressive in are with jumbo loans. From the range you gave, likely you are in jumbo territory. With jumbos, I have a 50/50 chance usually but if they really want you as their customer, they will blow me out of the water because they will take a loss on the loan just so they can have your customer relationship and cross sale you other things that they make their money off of you on such as wealth management.

I know that wasn't the answer you were looking for but hopefully it informs you well above getting a "I can do better! Do the loan with me." answer you will usually get from a mortgage loan officer.

 

[Peggy]

@Chadstroma

Got pre-approved by BOA today in about 30 minutes over the phone. 500K to 1MM. If I just purchase and carry a mortgage on a new home for a few months while I sell our current home with 20% down the 30-year rate is 6.75%. A line of credit for that much would be 9.935% variable and 10.261% fixed.

That jive with current market conditions? I don't see any reason/advantage for not just getting a mortgage.

It is really impossible to answer that honestly in any way that isn't pure sales pitch. Here is why I say that...

Mortgage rates are not the same for everyone. There are a number of factors that feed into what rate/cost a loan may be at. Things like credit score, location, type of home, type of loan, LTV, DTI, loan size, and more can or do impact the rate/cost of a loan. It is why I hate hearing the question "Where are rates at?" when someone finds out I am a mortgage broker in real life (I do make it a point to let people know though so half of that is on me ) and the reason is I can either give a really vague answer or I can go into a dissertation on how there are a lot of variables in a loan and no one wants to hear that (I am sure you are not thrilled to read it either). Further, I am not fully understanding your scenario as you laid out there.

Also, if you notice above, I wrote rate/cost because rate is the thing most people focus on but it isn't the only factor to the cost of the mortgage. So, there are a lot of ways lenders try to make their loans look good or competitive and in truth with the full picture, they are not.

I can offer two things... one, you can do an application with me, I can do a soft credit pull and then price out the specifics for you or two, you can move forward with BOA and when you are under contract you will get a Loan Estimate. You can send that Loan Estimate to me (there is no sensitive information on LE's and they are meant to help you shop your loan), that and usually you telling me the credit score they used for it- I can tell you if it is a good deal and you can move forward with them or that I could save you X money and you can decide to switch.

I will say this about the big banks. They are usually horrible at mortgages. It is very rare for me to have been beat out on pricing for conventional, VA, FHA or USDA from a bank in general and almost never from a big bank. They also tend to not be very good at their jobs (though there are certainly many exceptions). I have done more than a couple of mortgages for mortgage loan officers at big banks including BofA. For the first few I did, I started out talking to them like I would with someone in the industry and made some assumptions that they knew some of the most basic things about mortgages.... to find out they didn't.... so I started talking to them like I would a first time homebuyer because that was honestly the level of their understanding of mortgages (which blew my mind). For pricing, banks tend to look at it like "We are BofA" or "We are Chase" or whatever.... "so, of course people will want to do their loans with us." when I worked for big banks, I would have people come in all the time wanting to do loans with us and they would say something like "you have all my information so it should be easier with you." or some other assumption..... me being the horrible salesperson that I am, I would correct them but then happily take their application (after all, that was my job). Now, with that all said, the one area that big banks will be aggressive in are with jumbo loans. From the range you gave, likely you are in jumbo territory. With jumbos, I have a 50/50 chance usually but if they really want you as their customer, they will blow me out of the water because they will take a loss on the loan just so they can have your customer relationship and cross sale you other things that they make their money off of you on such as wealth management.

I know that wasn't the answer you were looking for but hopefully it informs you well above getting a "I can do better! Do the loan with me." answer you will usually get from a mortgage loan officer.

Thanks. Yeah, my questions were kind of dumb now I think about. I was surprised at sub 7% rates though.

 

[Chadstroma]

@Chadstroma

Got pre-approved by BOA today in about 30 minutes over the phone. 500K to 1MM. If I just purchase and carry a mortgage on a new home for a few months while I sell our current home with 20% down the 30-year rate is 6.75%. A line of credit for that much would be 9.935% variable and 10.261% fixed.

That jive with current market conditions? I don't see any reason/advantage for not just getting a mortgage.

It is really impossible to answer that honestly in any way that isn't pure sales pitch. Here is why I say that...

Mortgage rates are not the same for everyone. There are a number of factors that feed into what rate/cost a loan may be at. Things like credit score, location, type of home, type of loan, LTV, DTI, loan size, and more can or do impact the rate/cost of a loan. It is why I hate hearing the question "Where are rates at?" when someone finds out I am a mortgage broker in real life (I do make it a point to let people know though so half of that is on me ) and the reason is I can either give a really vague answer or I can go into a dissertation on how there are a lot of variables in a loan and no one wants to hear that (I am sure you are not thrilled to read it either). Further, I am not fully understanding your scenario as you laid out there.

Also, if you notice above, I wrote rate/cost because rate is the thing most people focus on but it isn't the only factor to the cost of the mortgage. So, there are a lot of ways lenders try to make their loans look good or competitive and in truth with the full picture, they are not.

I can offer two things... one, you can do an application with me, I can do a soft credit pull and then price out the specifics for you or two, you can move forward with BOA and when you are under contract you will get a Loan Estimate. You can send that Loan Estimate to me (there is no sensitive information on LE's and they are meant to help you shop your loan), that and usually you telling me the credit score they used for it- I can tell you if it is a good deal and you can move forward with them or that I could save you X money and you can decide to switch.

I will say this about the big banks. They are usually horrible at mortgages. It is very rare for me to have been beat out on pricing for conventional, VA, FHA or USDA from a bank in general and almost never from a big bank. They also tend to not be very good at their jobs (though there are certainly many exceptions). I have done more than a couple of mortgages for mortgage loan officers at big banks including BofA. For the first few I did, I started out talking to them like I would with someone in the industry and made some assumptions that they knew some of the most basic things about mortgages.... to find out they didn't.... so I started talking to them like I would a first time homebuyer because that was honestly the level of their understanding of mortgages (which blew my mind). For pricing, banks tend to look at it like "We are BofA" or "We are Chase" or whatever.... "so, of course people will want to do their loans with us." when I worked for big banks, I would have people come in all the time wanting to do loans with us and they would say something like "you have all my information so it should be easier with you." or some other assumption..... me being the horrible salesperson that I am, I would correct them but then happily take their application (after all, that was my job). Now, with that all said, the one area that big banks will be aggressive in are with jumbo loans. From the range you gave, likely you are in jumbo territory. With jumbos, I have a 50/50 chance usually but if they really want you as their customer, they will blow me out of the water because they will take a loss on the loan just so they can have your customer relationship and cross sale you other things that they make their money off of you on such as wealth management.

I know that wasn't the answer you were looking for but hopefully it informs you well above getting a "I can do better! Do the loan with me." answer you will usually get from a mortgage loan officer.

Thanks. Yeah, my questions were kind of dumb now I think about. I was surprised at sub 7% rates though.

Not dumb at all... perfectly normal for a consumer to approach it like that. I try to educate, inform and guide rather than sell. Most other MLO's sell.

 

[Peggy]

@krista4 update did you get moved AOK, end up hiring movers?

What we ended up doing (and things I learned):

Regular mortgage through BoA. Mortgage will be paid off as soon as we sell our current home that goes on sale next weekend. BoA was late doing some thing for closing, but, luckily the title company and our remote notary were flexible and we got it all done. I chose them because we have many of our accounts with them and in the end that did make everything smoother moving money around. I did have to go into the bank once when wiring the funds to the title company, but other than that we could just upload documents through our accounts page and now our mortgage shows up there. Making a payment is as simple as clicking a button from one account to the other. They need improvements during the process though, the lending specialists assigned to us were very attentive and reachable, but, when it came to getting approvals done and paperwork out the door it became apparent that they weren't actually the ones that were accomplishing the tasks (without going into too much details). After filling out a survey I had BoA management call me personally to discuss the specifics and it seems they are trying to get better. All in all I would do it again with them though.

We used AmeriFreight to transport the vehicles. I would highly highly recommend them. From the first phone call the lady said "I'm going to tell you how this really works" and explained the whole brokerage process. They don't collect any money until a transport truck puts in an offer and we accept it. She worked with them to get the lowest possible price, charges us $200 and the balance is due to the trucker when the vehicle is delivered.

We used American Van Lines to move all our stuff. They just left on Tuesday with all our crap loaded on a truck. The drivers here are brokered too. The driver leases the truck from AVL, so it's an actual AVL truck, and then does all the work under a contract he has with AVL while we pay AVL directly. We got two quotes, a second one from a smaller company and both were $22,000. One thing we were concerned about was not having an in person walk through for the estimate. If you don't have an in person estimate they can charge you more than what is shown on the line item estimate. We did insist on them doing a video walk through at the time. Working with the driver though, it helps having a bubbly attractive wife doing the talking, he kept it down to just adding an additional 20 boxes or so to the estimate. Up to $24,000 now. This is the part you really need to pay attention to, make sure you have everything in the estimate or get someone in person to do the estimate. The driver said the other family on the truck estimate went from 20k to 30k. I remember seeing my company's bill for moving us here 13 years ago and it was 25K, and we have a lot more stuff now than we did then so I'm really happy with the price. Not looking forward to the usual amount of damage and lost items, but, that's just part of the deal.

 

[Chadstroma]

@krista4 update did you get moved AOK, end up hiring movers?

What we ended up doing (and things I learned):

Regular mortgage through BoA. Mortgage will be paid off as soon as we sell our current home that goes on sale next weekend. BoA was late doing some thing for closing, but, luckily the title company and our remote notary were flexible and we got it all done. I chose them because we have many of our accounts with them and in the end that did make everything smoother moving money around. I did have to go into the bank once when wiring the funds to the title company, but other than that we could just upload documents through our accounts page and now our mortgage shows up there. Making a payment is as simple as clicking a button from one account to the other. They need improvements during the process though, the lending specialists assigned to us were very attentive and reachable, but, when it came to getting approvals done and paperwork out the door it became apparent that they weren't actually the ones that were accomplishing the tasks (without going into too much details). After filling out a survey I had BoA management call me personally to discuss the specifics and it seems they are trying to get better. All in all I would do it again with them though.

We used AmeriFreight to transport the vehicles. I would highly highly recommend them. From the first phone call the lady said "I'm going to tell you how this really works" and explained the whole brokerage process. They don't collect any money until a transport truck puts in an offer and we accept it. She worked with them to get the lowest possible price, charges us $200 and the balance is due to the trucker when the vehicle is delivered.

We used American Van Lines to move all our stuff. They just left on Tuesday with all our crap loaded on a truck. The drivers here are brokered too. The driver leases the truck from AVL, so it's an actual AVL truck, and then does all the work under a contract he has with AVL while we pay AVL directly. We got two quotes, a second one from a smaller company and both were $22,000. One thing we were concerned about was not having an in person walk through for the estimate. If you don't have an in person estimate they can charge you more than what is shown on the line item estimate. We did insist on them doing a video walk through at the time. Working with the driver though, it helps having a bubbly attractive wife doing the talking, he kept it down to just adding an additional 20 boxes or so to the estimate. Up to $24,000 now. This is the part you really need to pay attention to, make sure you have everything in the estimate or get someone in person to do the estimate. The driver said the other family on the truck estimate went from 20k to 30k. I remember seeing my company's bill for moving us here 13 years ago and it was 25K, and we have a lot more stuff now than we did then so I'm really happy with the price. Not looking forward to the usual amount of damage and lost items, but, that's just part of the deal.

I am glad it worked out in the end for you but I really wish you would have sent me the loan estimate from BofA. Unless it is a jumbo loan or CRA loan.... I have never been beaten out by BofA and usually not by just a little.

For future reference, most of my career was working for banks. I would have clients come in and say something along the lines of "I have all my accounts here so I figured it would be easier". I smiled and took their application. As I took their application I would explain to them that I could pull their bank statements but that I would need X, Y and Z which every other lender would need as well. Everything you described about the process would be the exact same with me though I am sure they did not ask for the bank statements because they should have been able to pull them themselves... so that would be the only difference.

As for the issues you had, that is pretty much par for course with BofA and in reality, all the big banks. There is a meme that use to go around the lending community of "If Wells Fargo says they will do their loan, they will- there is no need to ask them about it every month" BofA reputation in the lending community is not much better and they have been trying to get better for the last couple of decades.

There are lenders that I get beat out on here and there. They is the 'game' of being in this industry. It is what it is. But I always wince when someone tells me that they got their mortgage from a large bank. Like I said before, unless it is a jumbo or CRA loan- you most likely did not get as good of a deal as you could have. And in the end, the chances of not having a smooth loan process are much higher than with other lenders. I do not mean to rain on your parade. I am happy you got your new home. I just want to try to educate you and others on it. I have seen BofA at times have not too bad pricing so I am hoping that you got one of those times.

 

[Peggy]

@krista4 update did you get moved AOK, end up hiring movers?

What we ended up doing (and things I learned):

Regular mortgage through BoA. Mortgage will be paid off as soon as we sell our current home that goes on sale next weekend. BoA was late doing some thing for closing, but, luckily the title company and our remote notary were flexible and we got it all done. I chose them because we have many of our accounts with them and in the end that did make everything smoother moving money around. I did have to go into the bank once when wiring the funds to the title company, but other than that we could just upload documents through our accounts page and now our mortgage shows up there. Making a payment is as simple as clicking a button from one account to the other. They need improvements during the process though, the lending specialists assigned to us were very attentive and reachable, but, when it came to getting approvals done and paperwork out the door it became apparent that they weren't actually the ones that were accomplishing the tasks (without going into too much details). After filling out a survey I had BoA management call me personally to discuss the specifics and it seems they are trying to get better. All in all I would do it again with them though.

We used AmeriFreight to transport the vehicles. I would highly highly recommend them. From the first phone call the lady said "I'm going to tell you how this really works" and explained the whole brokerage process. They don't collect any money until a transport truck puts in an offer and we accept it. She worked with them to get the lowest possible price, charges us $200 and the balance is due to the trucker when the vehicle is delivered.

We used American Van Lines to move all our stuff. They just left on Tuesday with all our crap loaded on a truck. The drivers here are brokered too. The driver leases the truck from AVL, so it's an actual AVL truck, and then does all the work under a contract he has with AVL while we pay AVL directly. We got two quotes, a second one from a smaller company and both were $22,000. One thing we were concerned about was not having an in person walk through for the estimate. If you don't have an in person estimate they can charge you more than what is shown on the line item estimate. We did insist on them doing a video walk through at the time. Working with the driver though, it helps having a bubbly attractive wife doing the talking, he kept it down to just adding an additional 20 boxes or so to the estimate. Up to $24,000 now. This is the part you really need to pay attention to, make sure you have everything in the estimate or get someone in person to do the estimate. The driver said the other family on the truck estimate went from 20k to 30k. I remember seeing my company's bill for moving us here 13 years ago and it was 25K, and we have a lot more stuff now than we did then so I'm really happy with the price. Not looking forward to the usual amount of damage and lost items, but, that's just part of the deal.

I am glad it worked out in the end for you but I really wish you would have sent me the loan estimate from BofA. Unless it is a jumbo loan or CRA loan.... I have never been beaten out by BofA and usually not by just a little.

For future reference, most of my career was working for banks. I would have clients come in and say something along the lines of "I have all my accounts here so I figured it would be easier". I smiled and took their application. As I took their application I would explain to them that I could pull their bank statements but that I would need X, Y and Z which every other lender would need as well. Everything you described about the process would be the exact same with me though I am sure they did not ask for the bank statements because they should have been able to pull them themselves... so that would be the only difference.

As for the issues you had, that is pretty much par for course with BofA and in reality, all the big banks. There is a meme that use to go around the lending community of "If Wells Fargo says they will do their loan, they will- there is no need to ask them about it every month" BofA reputation in the lending community is not much better and they have been trying to get better for the last couple of decades.

There are lenders that I get beat out on here and there. They is the 'game' of being in this industry. It is what it is. But I always wince when someone tells me that they got their mortgage from a large bank. Like I said before, unless it is a jumbo or CRA loan- you most likely did not get as good of a deal as you could have. And in the end, the chances of not having a smooth loan process are much higher than with other lenders. I do not mean to rain on your parade. I am happy you got your new home. I just want to try to educate you and others on it. I have seen BofA at times have not too bad pricing so I am hoping that you got one of those times.

It's not that big of a deal. In a couple months the mortgage goes away.

 

[Ron Swanson]

@krista4 update did you get moved AOK, end up hiring movers?

What we ended up doing (and things I learned):

Regular mortgage through BoA. Mortgage will be paid off as soon as we sell our current home that goes on sale next weekend. BoA was late doing some thing for closing, but, luckily the title company and our remote notary were flexible and we got it all done. I chose them because we have many of our accounts with them and in the end that did make everything smoother moving money around. I did have to go into the bank once when wiring the funds to the title company, but other than that we could just upload documents through our accounts page and now our mortgage shows up there. Making a payment is as simple as clicking a button from one account to the other. They need improvements during the process though, the lending specialists assigned to us were very attentive and reachable, but, when it came to getting approvals done and paperwork out the door it became apparent that they weren't actually the ones that were accomplishing the tasks (without going into too much details). After filling out a survey I had BoA management call me personally to discuss the specifics and it seems they are trying to get better. All in all I would do it again with them though.

We used AmeriFreight to transport the vehicles. I would highly highly recommend them. From the first phone call the lady said "I'm going to tell you how this really works" and explained the whole brokerage process. They don't collect any money until a transport truck puts in an offer and we accept it. She worked with them to get the lowest possible price, charges us $200 and the balance is due to the trucker when the vehicle is delivered.

We used American Van Lines to move all our stuff. They just left on Tuesday with all our crap loaded on a truck. The drivers here are brokered too. The driver leases the truck from AVL, so it's an actual AVL truck, and then does all the work under a contract he has with AVL while we pay AVL directly. We got two quotes, a second one from a smaller company and both were $22,000. One thing we were concerned about was not having an in person walk through for the estimate. If you don't have an in person estimate they can charge you more than what is shown on the line item estimate. We did insist on them doing a video walk through at the time. Working with the driver though, it helps having a bubbly attractive wife doing the talking, he kept it down to just adding an additional 20 boxes or so to the estimate. Up to $24,000 now. This is the part you really need to pay attention to, make sure you have everything in the estimate or get someone in person to do the estimate. The driver said the other family on the truck estimate went from 20k to 30k. I remember seeing my company's bill for moving us here 13 years ago and it was 25K, and we have a lot more stuff now than we did then so I'm really happy with the price. Not looking forward to the usual amount of damage and lost items, but, that's just part of the deal.

Wow. I'm floored by how expensive it is to move. How far did you go?

 

[Peggy]

@krista4 update did you get moved AOK, end up hiring movers?

What we ended up doing (and things I learned):

Regular mortgage through BoA. Mortgage will be paid off as soon as we sell our current home that goes on sale next weekend. BoA was late doing some thing for closing, but, luckily the title company and our remote notary were flexible and we got it all done. I chose them because we have many of our accounts with them and in the end that did make everything smoother moving money around. I did have to go into the bank once when wiring the funds to the title company, but other than that we could just upload documents through our accounts page and now our mortgage shows up there. Making a payment is as simple as clicking a button from one account to the other. They need improvements during the process though, the lending specialists assigned to us were very attentive and reachable, but, when it came to getting approvals done and paperwork out the door it became apparent that they weren't actually the ones that were accomplishing the tasks (without going into too much details). After filling out a survey I had BoA management call me personally to discuss the specifics and it seems they are trying to get better. All in all I would do it again with them though.

We used AmeriFreight to transport the vehicles. I would highly highly recommend them. From the first phone call the lady said "I'm going to tell you how this really works" and explained the whole brokerage process. They don't collect any money until a transport truck puts in an offer and we accept it. She worked with them to get the lowest possible price, charges us $200 and the balance is due to the trucker when the vehicle is delivered.

We used American Van Lines to move all our stuff. They just left on Tuesday with all our crap loaded on a truck. The drivers here are brokered too. The driver leases the truck from AVL, so it's an actual AVL truck, and then does all the work under a contract he has with AVL while we pay AVL directly. We got two quotes, a second one from a smaller company and both were $22,000. One thing we were concerned about was not having an in person walk through for the estimate. If you don't have an in person estimate they can charge you more than what is shown on the line item estimate. We did insist on them doing a video walk through at the time. Working with the driver though, it helps having a bubbly attractive wife doing the talking, he kept it down to just adding an additional 20 boxes or so to the estimate. Up to $24,000 now. This is the part you really need to pay attention to, make sure you have everything in the estimate or get someone in person to do the estimate. The driver said the other family on the truck estimate went from 20k to 30k. I remember seeing my company's bill for moving us here 13 years ago and it was 25K, and we have a lot more stuff now than we did then so I'm really happy with the price. Not looking forward to the usual amount of damage and lost items, but, that's just part of the deal.

Wow. I'm floored by how expensive it is to move. How far did you go?

West Coast all the way to Virginia. 2500SF house full of crap, including a riding lawnmower and two motorcycles. Work bench, table saw bench, all kinds of power tools and gardening tools. 3 flat screens. I'm pleasantly surprised.

 

[Beef Ravioli Part 2]

@krista4 update did you get moved AOK, end up hiring movers?

What we ended up doing (and things I learned):

Regular mortgage through BoA. Mortgage will be paid off as soon as we sell our current home that goes on sale next weekend. BoA was late doing some thing for closing, but, luckily the title company and our remote notary were flexible and we got it all done. I chose them because we have many of our accounts with them and in the end that did make everything smoother moving money around. I did have to go into the bank once when wiring the funds to the title company, but other than that we could just upload documents through our accounts page and now our mortgage shows up there. Making a payment is as simple as clicking a button from one account to the other. They need improvements during the process though, the lending specialists assigned to us were very attentive and reachable, but, when it came to getting approvals done and paperwork out the door it became apparent that they weren't actually the ones that were accomplishing the tasks (without going into too much details). After filling out a survey I had BoA management call me personally to discuss the specifics and it seems they are trying to get better. All in all I would do it again with them though.

We used AmeriFreight to transport the vehicles. I would highly highly recommend them. From the first phone call the lady said "I'm going to tell you how this really works" and explained the whole brokerage process. They don't collect any money until a transport truck puts in an offer and we accept it. She worked with them to get the lowest possible price, charges us $200 and the balance is due to the trucker when the vehicle is delivered.

We used American Van Lines to move all our stuff. They just left on Tuesday with all our crap loaded on a truck. The drivers here are brokered too. The driver leases the truck from AVL, so it's an actual AVL truck, and then does all the work under a contract he has with AVL while we pay AVL directly. We got two quotes, a second one from a smaller company and both were $22,000. One thing we were concerned about was not having an in person walk through for the estimate. If you don't have an in person estimate they can charge you more than what is shown on the line item estimate. We did insist on them doing a video walk through at the time. Working with the driver though, it helps having a bubbly attractive wife doing the talking, he kept it down to just adding an additional 20 boxes or so to the estimate. Up to $24,000 now. This is the part you really need to pay attention to, make sure you have everything in the estimate or get someone in person to do the estimate. The driver said the other family on the truck estimate went from 20k to 30k. I remember seeing my company's bill for moving us here 13 years ago and it was 25K, and we have a lot more stuff now than we did then so I'm really happy with the price. Not looking forward to the usual amount of damage and lost items, but, that's just part of the deal.

Wow. I'm floored by how expensive it is to move. How far did you go?

West Coast all the way to Virginia. 2500SF house full of crap, including a riding lawnmower and two motorcycles. Work bench, table saw bench, all kinds of power tools and gardening tools. 3 flat screens. I'm pleasantly surprised.

Curious what region of Virginia you ended up in and what brought you from one coast to the other coast?

 

[Peggy]

@krista4 update did you get moved AOK, end up hiring movers?

What we ended up doing (and things I learned):

Regular mortgage through BoA. Mortgage will be paid off as soon as we sell our current home that goes on sale next weekend. BoA was late doing some thing for closing, but, luckily the title company and our remote notary were flexible and we got it all done. I chose them because we have many of our accounts with them and in the end that did make everything smoother moving money around. I did have to go into the bank once when wiring the funds to the title company, but other than that we could just upload documents through our accounts page and now our mortgage shows up there. Making a payment is as simple as clicking a button from one account to the other. They need improvements during the process though, the lending specialists assigned to us were very attentive and reachable, but, when it came to getting approvals done and paperwork out the door it became apparent that they weren't actually the ones that were accomplishing the tasks (without going into too much details). After filling out a survey I had BoA management call me personally to discuss the specifics and it seems they are trying to get better. All in all I would do it again with them though.

We used AmeriFreight to transport the vehicles. I would highly highly recommend them. From the first phone call the lady said "I'm going to tell you how this really works" and explained the whole brokerage process. They don't collect any money until a transport truck puts in an offer and we accept it. She worked with them to get the lowest possible price, charges us $200 and the balance is due to the trucker when the vehicle is delivered.

We used American Van Lines to move all our stuff. They just left on Tuesday with all our crap loaded on a truck. The drivers here are brokered too. The driver leases the truck from AVL, so it's an actual AVL truck, and then does all the work under a contract he has with AVL while we pay AVL directly. We got two quotes, a second one from a smaller company and both were $22,000. One thing we were concerned about was not having an in person walk through for the estimate. If you don't have an in person estimate they can charge you more than what is shown on the line item estimate. We did insist on them doing a video walk through at the time. Working with the driver though, it helps having a bubbly attractive wife doing the talking, he kept it down to just adding an additional 20 boxes or so to the estimate. Up to $24,000 now. This is the part you really need to pay attention to, make sure you have everything in the estimate or get someone in person to do the estimate. The driver said the other family on the truck estimate went from 20k to 30k. I remember seeing my company's bill for moving us here 13 years ago and it was 25K, and we have a lot more stuff now than we did then so I'm really happy with the price. Not looking forward to the usual amount of damage and lost items, but, that's just part of the deal.

Wow. I'm floored by how expensive it is to move. How far did you go?

West Coast all the way to Virginia. 2500SF house full of crap, including a riding lawnmower and two motorcycles. Work bench, table saw bench, all kinds of power tools and gardening tools. 3 flat screens. I'm pleasantly surprised.

Curious what region of Virginia you ended up in and what brought you from one coast to the other coast?

Retirement.

Purely geographical, not because of family nor had we ever lived been there before. We wanted warmer summers but still close to mountains and not too far from a coastline - although protected from hurricanes that travel up the coast. If you look at a map the Appalachians run further south than any other mountain range. Plus it's drop dead gorgeous god's country.

And it's easier to travel abroad than the west coast.