Date: February 22, 2017

To: Professor Cook

From: Anthony Madden AM

Subject: Progress on Purchasing a Home

My wife and I have begun looking for a house and have also started the lengthy process of
purchasing a new home for our family. The task at hand is to find a house that we love and
complete all of the steps necessary in order to make it our new home. We put together a list
of requirements for the house that we wanted: amount of bedrooms, school district,
neighborhood safety, and price range to name a few. Our original plan was to find and close
on a house by August, and we are currently ahead of schedule.

Work Completed

My wife and I spent a couple of weekends looking at houses in January, and we found one that
we both liked, but it was not in a safe neighborhood, and it was not in a school district that we
wanted. We continued our search and found a house the next weekend which fit most of our
requirements. We put an offer of down on the house on February 4th. The seller countered our
offer on February 6th with a slightly higher price, which we accepted. We had 14 days from the
acceptance date to either get an inspection of the property or to forfeit our right to get an
inspection. We proceeded to get the inspection which was done on February 14 th. The
inspection report was generated on February 15th.

During the time we were looking at houses, we went to our bank to apply to get preapproved
for a loan. Ms. Perkins, the mortgage loan consultant, informed us about a grant that begins on
March 1st, and it helps to cover up to $5,000 in closing costs and down payment. Ms. Perkins
also set my wife and me up with a preferred realtor of the bank, which will save us more money
than selecting a realtor ourselves. We decided to go with the preferred realtor, Ms. Essex.

Ms. Perkins contacted us on February 10th to let us know that we needed to come in to the
bank to sign the disclosure forms, and to also lock in the interest rate at 4.00%. My wife and I
decided to go ahead and lock in the interest rate, and we went in to the bank on February 17 th
to sign the disclosure forms. We discovered that our house payments will be approximately
$560 per month.

Work Underway

The next task is to have Ms. Essex write a repair request form from the inspection report. She
will need to submit the repair request form to the seller and the seller’s agent, which is due
February 23rd. Ms. Perkins will need to send all of the disclosure forms that my wife and I had
signed on February 17th to underwriting where the underwriter will determine how the loan
will be structured.

Work Not Started

The appraiser needs to view the property to come up with an appraised value for the property
to ensure that it is worth at least what the loan value is. The seller and the seller’s agent will
need to review and approve the repair request form and also get the repairs that were agreed
upon done within the next two weeks. My wife and I will need to do a final walkthrough before
closing to ensure that the repairs are done to our satisfaction. We will need to schedule the
start of services for water, trash, power, gas, and internet services before we take occupancy of
the property. We will also need to sign the papers at the closing which is scheduled for March
23rd.

Conclusion

My wife and I are significantly ahead of our original schedule of finding and closing on a house
by August. At the current rate, we are scheduled to close and take occupancy of the property
by March 23rd. As long as all of the steps are completed on time, we have found our “forever”
home!