This was nerve-racking. With the house not being technically ours, I was walking around on egg shells. The seller, now gone landlord, could at any point make some weird demands on us as tenants. He also still had junk in the garage which we couldn't do anything about since the house was still technically his. Ugg.
Tuesday, we got the word that we'd close the next day. I didn't buy it. I'd heard that before. So I waited.
Wednesday came around with the expected phone call 2 hours before the 3rd scheduled closing: it isn't happening today and the underwriters want a bunch more documentation of our financial situation. Many thanks go to Leni for handling most of this and absolutely no thanks go to our lame-o loan officer for not asking us to get this stuff together in the first place before it went to the underwriters.
The tiny bit of good news is that the underwriters did get through our loan application quickly, which made me somewhat hopeful that they might let us close the next day after reviewing the new stuff we sent in.
But then again, I've been wrong about being hopeful in this situation before.
I put my life on hold on Thursday. Doing nothing but unpacking at the house so that I'd be available to go in at a moment's notice to close. When work called asking me to come in, I even told them I was unavailable. So needless to say, when I laid down for a nap and woke up and it was 3:30 PM and we hadn't heard anything, the anger was bubbling up.
I chilled myself out and picked up the phone. I had never personally spoken with our loan officer before. Leni had been her contact and for communication's sake, I had tried to let her deal only with one of us so that messages didn't get missed, etc. I called her and politely (I swear!) asked what was going on and why the underwriters were needing SO much extra time with those few extra documents when they had gotten the rest of our paperwork through so quickly a few days before. She immediately took the overly defensive tone with me, long before I would have cracked, had I been on the other end of the conversation. So we got into it a little. At one point, I asked her if she thought I should be happy with the service we were getting, a question that was followed with a long pause. She didn't need to answer...we both knew what she was thinking. The conversation ended with her saying that she was going to make a few phone calls and then call me back. She actually did just that, but called Leni instead of me. Smart move, I thought. I probably would have done the same thing. The "new" story was that the title company here in town would have all the documents by tomorrow (Friday, July 2) and that we'd close in the morning. I'd heard that before....
I think most home buyers love getting into a new house but dread the act of sitting down and writing that check for the down payment. But by the time Friday came around, I was more ready to write that check then ever. At 10:45 in the morning, four tries and two weeks after it was supposed to happen in the first place, we......wait for it.....closed.
Closing was the easiest part. We forked over the money and now have the pleasure of knowing that we don't have to put up with the sellers anymore, or the loan company. Please note that we will be changing locks ASAP.
I wish I could say it is exciting to finally call the place "ours". The drama took all the excitement away. I'd love to be able to say "I own a home" but it just isn't true. I own a small percentage of a home. Maybe a closet? For now, the majority of the place is owned by the lender. Which is fine. I just hope they call ahead before having a holiday party there or something.
As for the junk that's still in the garage, I'm selling what I can on craigslist (already made $40 off a desk and $35 off an old dog house!) and we'll take the rest to the dump very soon. I guess that's the price you pay for dealing with wackos.
We've got extra bedrooms. Come visit! Just 4 free weekends left between now and the end of the summer.
Keep It Real!
First of all, congrats on finally closing! That's awesome. But why is it that just about all loan companies seem incompetent??? Even before the housing bubble hit a few years ago, there seem to be a lot of horror stories out there.
ReplyDeleteI hope all is well in NM . . . I miss the arid weather.
Congrats, Maggie! I'm sure after a few weeks have gone by and you've had some time to "forget" about the frustration you'll be a little more excited about your closet! :)
ReplyDeleteMiss you and maybe sometime soon I'll make a drive to say hi.
Hahaha... love that you're making your "rent" money back by selling off their junk, and your handling of the loan officer. There's a reason I generally deal with that stuff for us. (Andrew was surprised the other day when, after fighting with the grad office for several hours, I hadn't actually made the head of the grad office cry. *ahem* Some times things just need the right touch.)
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