Thank you flyer teaboy and scaredy for the kind words.
Teaboy’s comments show the fallacy of the “why not just pay 1% more if you really care.” The extra 1% can be repeated endlessly, something like Zeno’s paradoxes.
Yes, I would have walked over the 25k difference. Prices are falling in east county at least, and the type of big suburban homes I was targeting start losing some of their potential buyers as the school year approaches. If this were the only McMansion in San Diego under 2m, yes I would have paid the extra 25k. But that’s not the situation.
I might have come back to the same home, or found another, or just waited a couple months and reentered the market. The home was the best home for me on the market now and I really like it. But there was 1 home that sold in early June I wish I had grabbed that was better than the one I am buying, and maybe 2-3 more over the past 6 months that were about equal.
I negotiate litigation settlements all the time, so while I may not be an expert, nor am I noob. Suburban homes are a lot easier to value than most legal cases. For example, property sales are public record, but most settlements are confidential, so the pool of “recent comparable sales” in litigation may be small or oftentimes zero.
So far I am liking the jumbo loan process. While pretty close to conforming mortgage process, there seems to be less of a focus on checking Fannie Mae guideline boxes and more on just documenting the major income and assets. I also like that it will be serviced by the same big bank originating bank. I have had Wells and Chase service mortgages, and they are a lot more user friendly than tiny companies that right now have my three current mortgages. My processor also noted that if I choose to make a 15k+ extra payment, I can have my loan “recast” such that instead of an earlier payoff date, the minimum payment is recalculated lower. There have been times when that would have been great.
