From: gamilah_sun@hotmail.com (gamilah_sun@hotmail.com)
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
Subject: My questions and conserns about buying a  home
Date: 28 Feb 2004 14:07:35 -0800

Hi there!
This is our first time of buying a house and everything seemed so
overwhelming. After half year's hard work we finally find an old
townhouse in kirkland, wa, which we really like a lot. The price is
$205,000.00 with seller's paying us $5000.00 for closing fee.
Here comes all the problems:
can anybody tell me what closing fee is? How much should we pay? We
just have to pay whatever the realtor tells us (he said it was aound
3% of your purchasing price, but never explained to us what they are
for) or if there is anyway we could check?
the two days ago when we met our mortgage broker, she told us to write
a check to an appraiser $450 for inspecting our new home on behalf of
the bank.At that time she hadn't showed us any loan option. She just
gave us a name and told us to write a check to that guy, which enables
him to inspect. We didn't have a check book with us and also felt
uncomfortable to do so...(almost sounds like it was an order and we
had to obey.) So we just said Ok and wrote down the name. When we get
the chance to talk at home, we felt like the morgage broker treated us
like idiots. So we decided to find a way to check if there is another
way to find out the rule of paying the appraiser. But before we got
the answer we got a phone call from our realtor, whom is the the
friend of our mortgage broker, told us that they had sent the
appraiser inspected our house and we should now write them a
check??????????  we were so surprised by what they've done to us but
not sure what we should do next. we feel almost like obligated to work
with them cause there is no other option. here is my other consern: Is
the appraiser working for all the banks or for the specific bank? we
haven't agreed with the loan option yet. If the appraiser works for  a
specific bank, it means the broker has chosen some bank against our
will. Is that right?
According to what our broker showed us earlier, we could get a loan
with 4.75% interest rates plus $175 PMI per month. Is it a good deal?
How can I know how much should I pay for the PMI?  By the way we have
fairly good credit and we are preapprived for a house up to
$320,000.00
We are now in a very hard situation. It is 25 days away from our
closing day. we definately like that old cozy small house. So if
anybody has any idea about any of my questions Please let me know. It
would be really appriciated. Thanks so much!!!!!