Buy a house in the spring (summer)(now officially fall) of 2009

Contract signed, house is ours!

After seven months of searching, bidding, losing, waiting, financing, hoping, waiting, waiting… we are now homeowners. My #1 goal for the year is actually accomplished. Everything we put on hold for the year can now begin to creep forward. We have the keys, we have a home. My wife’s first “home” since she left her parents’ house at age 17.

Of course we raced back to the rental and got our bottle of champagne and camp light (the electricity, water and gas are still off), and toasted our accomplishments. We wandered room to room, still getting used to the idea we are responsible homeowners now. Because it was our house and we could we stripped naked and danced around the place. Then, since we were naked, we did other things, too. We left reluctantly after a couple of hours and had dinner and wine at a local restaurant, the first of our neighborhood outings.

We have the next two weeks to make the transition and move before our rent expires where we are now. Plenty of time to clean and paint, move, unpack, clean and paint. We are moving to a new area of town and hope to meet fun and interesting people and participate in the community.

My thanks and gratitude goes out to all the people who supported and cheered me on this goal. I retire it with a great deal of satisfaction and sense of accomplishment.

Did our final walk thru of the house this evening. Everything was as it should be, no water damage, vandalism, broken windows. Our broker called us with the final numbers and we are getting a cashier’s check in the morning. All our vacation and fun money, and lots of other things we gave up, is going into the closing costs. It was so nice to walk around the empty rooms and know that in less than 24 hours we will be the proud new owners.

The clock is counting down to homeownership. We have our tentative closing date of 4pm Friday, October 16th. We are settling in for the longest 4 days of this whole experience. We are jittery with excitement and nerves.

We have moved forward very well with our new mortgage broker. All our financials have been approved, we got final approval on the status of our loan, they have completed the appraisal and we have crossed every “t” and dotted every “i” they have asked us to. We have a closing date of October 16th. Of course, no one will guarantee that date, “so many things can still slow the process down, you know”. What I know is that it is little wonder there is a banking and housing crisis given the number of difficulties, challenges, mistakes and downright carelessness we have had to content with. But we are on the yellow brick road to our own abode, and keeping happy thought things continue on the right track. There is a bottle of champagne cooling in the fridge for the day those little brass keys fall into our hands and change our lives.

Our broker called us tonight at 9pm to tell us we are out of underwriting, and heading on to the processing department to secure a loan! Big hurtle overcome! The underwriter reviewed our application, made some notes and asked for some documents (all easy to get) and said as long as the processing went smoothly we could still expect to meet our revised closing date of October 16th. While S. jumped around with glee I asked harder, more practical questions, like what kink in the rail could still derail this train?

If the house appraises for less than the selling price (no chance, it is a short sale and is selling for less than anything in the area)

If in the course of the processing they discover we haven’t worked where we say as long as we say (no problem, our info is accurate), if we have debts we haven’t told them about (they know the color of our stools, they have been so far up our asses with a spotlight), if it turns out we are not US citizens (I’m okay, at least), or terrorists (I’m okay, at least), or a few other just as unlikely scenarios. They have to get some info from our previous broker, and there better not be any hold up there. I am willing to be magnanimous in victory, but I will not tolerate anyone throwing a wrench into the works now.

Unfortunately, there just isn’t any sunshine for us without some rain. In addition to the tragic loss of lives this week because of the rains, we suffered a setback of our own. See the next post.

A tempered, yet heartfelt happiness now that we are one big step closer, and gratitudes and blessings to our family, to Crunchy Bread, RONF, Dragonfly35, Littlesoul and everyone else who held us in their thoughts and well wishes. Everyone’s invited to the house warming!!

Sometimes the hardest part of getting a loan, is knowing all the rules…

So now we have two brokers competing for our loan, but of course neither can give us a definate answer until we actually submit our app to an underwriter. Thing is, if they have been overly optomistic and we get declined again (I can’t imagine why, but I couldn’t imagine why the first time, either) the next broker will have a harder time selling us to his underwriters.

What’s interesting (if I were viewing this more clinically and not so personally) is that everybody has different requirements of us for the same type of loan. Some want two months paystubs, some want two years tax returns. Some want to know why I don’t have enough credit cards, some want to know why I have so many. I wonder how much of this is really necessary and how much is just fluff so that they can use any excuse to deny a loan in the face of a shaky credit market. We have been told bluntly we are being appraised for our marketability; that is, the ease with which our mortage (should we get one) can be sold to another finance company. We are not being viewed as individuals or even gauged on our ability and willingness or commitment to pay back the loan. Do we fit a formula needed to lump similar loans together and sell as a package to some other company who will also want to know our marketability. They may be providing a service, but we are as much a commodity to them as potatoes to a farmer… who to harvest, who to plow under.

We are trying to get the process rolling again and our new broker, Bubba, is still sending positive feedback on our application, but doesn’t have a firm answer for us yet. He was going to have an answer yesterday, but his office had to be evacuated mid-day because of the heavy rains plaguing Atlanta this week. Or maybe they are plaguing us. Thursday will be a week since we were initially declined and I really want to have something to tell the home owner. We spent more than two months waiting for an answer from his bank, and we now have nearly four months invested in this project, so I am sure he doesn’t want to pitch all that and start over with a new buyer, but I can’t expect him to wait too much longer. Hopefully there will be helpful news today. I have my “hodie” amulet and keep focusing on positive outcomes.

The last two days have been…challenging.

It really began after our home inspection went through (okay, it really began ealier than that, but one crisis at a time). We had decided to use the inhouse broker of our real estate agent. They have had our finanical information for months – months!, and have never given us anything put positive feedback. Once the home inspection was completed I went, updated financials and $400 in hand, to start the loan process. At this point the loan officer, let’s call her “Puddles”, hemmed and hawed and said she didn’t want to send our info to the first lender she had planned, but to another lender who would take longer to review the application, but was more likely to come back with a positive answer.

One week went by and all was well. Two weeks went by and we began thinking that 7 – 10 business days seemed like a long time. Our conversations with the loan officer at this point were becoming confusing and disturbing. Puddles could not clearly tell us what we were waiting for or how much longer we were likely to wait. By week three our daily calls actually managed to penetrate the iron curtain of her voice-mail (which was always full)and she swore to let us know the minute our approval came back.

Yesterday I made my routine call. Puddles told me she had received an answer and was reviewing it. It was a denial from the lending agency. That was, truely and honestly, the last answer I expected. “Low income to debt ratio”, and another financial issue in S.’s background were the problem. But this couldn’t be. Our income to debt ratio was so low people asked us if we were 100% sure we didn’t owe more people money. And the matter with S. had been taken care of according to the broker’s instructions. The more we talked an the more questions I asked, the quieter Puddles became, and more she mumbled. Disturbed, I sent S. over to review the “denial” and determine just what the problem was, and what our next step was.

When S. arrived she found Puddles uncooperative and vauge. She back-tracked on the income to debt story and said the problem was S.’s past issue. “So what is our next step?” S. pressed. Puddles hemmed and hawed and continued being vauge.

Can we resubmit our application, ask for a review of the decision?

No.

Are you going to submit it to another lender?

No.

No? Why not?

With this issue, no one else will agree to underwrite you.

Really? No…one? And where was this info when we originally applied. We gave it to you, did it not register with you that if we found a house, we wouldn’t qualify for a loan?

Our agent learned of the issue and put us in touch with another broker. We will call him Bubba. Bubba asked Puddles for all our financial info, and we slowly have been learning that the problems were not ours. Our loan app had numerous mistakes, including a wrong SSN# and all of S.’s salary and income info not included. No wonder they came back with a poor income to debt ratio. And much of the information Puddles has been telling us for the last two days is so wildly incorrect, it can only be frantic lies or delusional behavior. Not good in the woman holding the reins to our house. Worse, we are only a week from our orginal closing. Worse, we gave notice to our landlord, to be out by the end of the month. Worse, we don’t know if Bubba is going to do any better with his lenders. Worst of all we may lose the house we spent six months finding. All because of a paperwork glitch that Puddles tried to make sound like our fault and telling our agent we knew all along it would be hard to get a loan.

We have asked around other brokers and are discovering that many of the things Puddles is telling us just aren’t true. So we have a new broker who is trying to expedite our process. The owner has had to ask his bank to back up the closing to mid October.

Damned if it won’t be fall, possibly winter, before I buy a house in the spring.

Very tired. Many margaritas. More to follow.

Only a couple of minor issues, nothing to stand in the way of us moving forward. The inspector was very thorough and said we were getting “a really very nice house”. Yeeaaaaa! Now onto the appraisal and final loan process. It may have only taken six months, but this goal is nearing completion!

Just signed the binding agreement to the contract. Bank accepted our offer and made no provisions. Woohoo! No more dealing with banks! Now just on to the closing (set for September 30th) and homeownership. Just need to get all details tidied, inspection, appraisal, final submission for the loan which comes from… a bank. Oh, crap.

Oh, well. This still qualifies for a happy homeowner dance!

Most recent news: The second bank has no plans to counter our offer, it seems it is going forward and we should be able to ink a contract early… next week! S. is bounding around doing the happy homeowner dance. I want to see the contract. Penalties of being a lifelong pessimist… but I am daring to be hopeful.