In 1982 we bought our first home, a townhouse in Greenbelt, MD. The agent for the builder took our loan application and gave us a document that said we would need $3,000 at closing, which was almost all we had. The builder took longer than anticipated to complete the home – about eight months. During that time we saved a little more money for furniture, curtains and such.

At the closing, much to our surprise, we needed $5,500 for settlement costs – all we had !  This seemed a bit suspicious to us and needless to say – We didn’t like it… (more…)