We own our first Rental Property!

It was very stressful the last few days.  On Thursday I got the final amount we had to bring to closing and it was about $1000 more than we had anticipated.  I hate to admit it, but I threw a temper tantrum.  I was so mad at our mortgage broker and feel that we were misled.  Before we even went forward with making an offer, I asked how much closing costs would be.  I was told around $3200 maybe a little more.  Then when I got our estimate for closing, it came in at $3800 which I thought was a lot more not just a little.  Final total, $4712 and that was just closing costs! We also had to pay the 20% down payment.  We did receive a check for $500 back from the Real Estate Agency for the earnest money we had paid.  And we were overcharged by $50 on our appraisal so we will be receiving a check in the mail for $50 back.  But had I known we would be taking this much money out of savings, I don't know that we would have moved forward with it.  It's a little scary.

So the bad news is that we had to bring a lot more to the table at closing than I had anticipated when we started this whole process.  The good news is that our monthly mortgage payment is less than I had anticipated.

Mortgage Payment:          $311
Condo Fee:                      $110
Water Bill:                        $ 50 (Budgeting $50 but it should be less than that)
Insurance:                        $ 22
Total Monthly Expenses:  $493

We're hoping to rent it for $825 per month so that would bring in an extra $332 per month.  I listed the rental on a local news site and on craigslist.  If we don't receive any calls on it within a week, I may lower it to $795.  I'd still be really happy with $300 a month income.  When we first started looking into this, I thought we would only be bringing in around $150 a month so I'm really happy that our expenses were lower than I had thought.

For a comparable, there is another condo listed for rent at $825 per month and they aren't even including water in the rent, plus our unit is more updated and nicer.